Sci-Tech Daresbury – John Leake – Partnering With Greenlight

How Sci-Tech Daresbury Fuels Greenlight Computers’ Growth and Innovation

As a leading provider of IT support, cybersecurity, and cloud services for the life sciences and technology sectors, Greenlight Computers thrives on collaboration, innovation, and proximity to ambitious clients. That’s why Sci-Tech Daresbury, one of the UK’s premier national science and innovation campuses, is the perfect home for Greenlights’ expanding operations.

Located in the Liverpool City Region, Sci-Tech Daresbury offers Greenlight Computers much more than just office space. The campus is a vibrant ecosystem built on open innovation, where nearly 150 companies benefit from access to world-class expertise, funding opportunities, and a collaborative community designed to accelerate business growth. As highlighted by John Leake, Business Growth Director at Sci-Tech Daresbury, the campus is dedicated to helping companies survive and thrive, an ethos that aligns perfectly with Greenlights’ commitment to supporting fast-growing, high-potential organisations.

Greenlight Computers leverages the unique advantages of the campus: a dynamic network of partners, regular events, and a supportive environment that fosters knowledge sharing and business development. The collaborative culture at Sci-Tech Daresbury enables Greenlight to stay at the forefront of IT innovation while providing direct support to life science and technology businesses across the Northwest and beyond. With easy access to transport links, state-of-the-art facilities, and a community that values sustainability and growth, Sci-Tech Daresbury empowers Greenlight Computers to deliver even greater value to its clients and play a central role in the region’s scientific and entrepreneurial success story.

Testimonial Transcript

Hi John, could you introduce yourself a little bit and the role that you do at Sci-Tech Daresbury?

Hi Leah, yeah, I’m John Leake. I’m the Business Growth Director at Sci-Tech Daresbury. My job is about growing the campus and helping grow the companies that are based here at Sci-Tech Daresbury. How do we do that? That’s about, first of all, inviting companies and bringing them to set up their operations, set up their businesses on the site here at Sci-Tech. If they’re early-stage companies, maybe that’s about surviving, but certainly if they get beyond that, then that’s about accelerating their growth. We’ll do that through a variety of networks and partnerships, events and activities that we run to help bring the right business opportunities, the right funding opportunities, and the best possible expertise that they’re going to need to help them develop and grow their business.

Could you tell us a little bit more about your overall ambitions?

Yeah, Sci-Tech Daresbury is a national science and innovation campus. It’s one of six in the UK, and it’s the only one in the north of England. As a science and innovation campus, we are looking to grow the site at Daresbury to around 10,000 people who are working in science, technology, and engineering. That isn’t going to happen overnight-that’s going to take us a little while. We started at about 400 people on the site when I first joined; that’s grown now to around 2,000 people, so we’re well on our way, but we still have a long way to go.

That’s quite a growth span there. As a science park, Sci-Tech Daresbury is known for its collaborative approach. How does a tenant company like Greenlight Computers contribute to that?

Yeah, as you said, one of our fundamental foundations for what we’ve done at Sci-Tech Daresbury is build it around something called open innovation. When we started out back in 2005, open innovation was relatively new, but the whole idea of it was about organizations finding the necessary knowledge, expertise, and capabilities that would help develop and grow the business as much from outside their organization as inside. That for us was fundamental in terms of developing and growing the campus and helping our companies de-risk their business, increase their potential to survive, and more importantly, increase their potential to accelerate their growth. So fundamental to that is collaboration. We want businesses that come and set up at Sci-Tech Daresbury who buy into that, and Greenlight, Greenlight Computers, definitely buy into that. I know personally, in terms of Gary Dodson, that’s kind of part of who he is and his DNA, absolutely, and that permeates throughout the whole of the business. So for us, they’re the ideal company that we want to have here as part of the community at Sci-Tech Daresbury.

It’s nice to hear that you have a personal relationship with the people that you have on site. We understand that you’ve just finished your term as chairperson of the UK Science Park Association. So what’s your next big challenge?

First of all, actually, having been on the board for six years, and two and a half of those six years was as the chair, and we were delivering our 40th anniversary conference last year, so the first thing I’m doing is actually just taking a little bit of a break, to be honest with you. We’ve got some extra exciting growth opportunities here at Sci-Tech Daresbury, part of the Liverpool City Region Life Sciences and Healthcare Innovation Zone. So that is giving us the opportunity to put in place some new programs and also set up some new facilities. We’re in the process of gearing up to build another two buildings on the campus here. One will be a class 2 laboratory building that will provide capability and scale up to pilot facilities, and alongside that is another office building. So that’s a key part of our focus in terms of getting that geared up and getting that going, and importantly, supporting those companies already on campus who we see as being ideal to be growing into those buildings, but also bringing new companies onto the campus and into the community here.

It sounds like you’ve got enough to keep you busy then.

I think so.

Well, thank you very much for your time today, John.

Absolute pleasure, Leah. Thank you.