Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
4 Measures of Success Against the Original Development
Objectives
The performance of science and technology parks is a topic which is of great
interest to politicians because many of these projects are publicly funded and
compete for public funding and in some instances for the land that is necessary for
their development. Although the University of Surrey was not exposed to this
political scrutiny there has been concern over time to assess the performance of the
Park. In 1996 some broad qualitative and quantitative measures were developed
for the measurement of the performance of the Surrey Research Park against its
original five objectives of income generation, technology transfer (now better
described as knowledge transfer), profile, economic development, and supporting
companies on the site in order to help to give them a competitive advantage. This
system is still being utilised today to review progress.
Creating some Independent income for the University of Surrey and creating
capital value of the assets of the park—success indicators:
Rate of development: the original timescale for the development of the Surrey
Research Park was 10 years; however, it has taken nearly 30 years to achieve
90 % developed. Only sites for larger building still remain undeveloped after this
period. The areas originally designated to micro and small companies was com-
pleted within the original planned 10 years. The slower rate of developments for
larger companies reflects the fact that today many larger companies are not
locating their R&D effort in single large buildings but are looking to deploy their
research activities as small specialist groups close to specific host organisations
that have defined technology competences.
Evidence of this is shown by the presence on the Surrey Research Park over
19 years of the Mitsubishi Research Centre and for research centres for Kobe
Steel, Canon and Hygiena International. The initial Master Plan for the site
enabled the Park to develop sites as phases. This flexibility has proved to be
important feature of the site.
Capital value and rental income for the University: the developed area of the park
has been valued as a property asset at £80 million (2006).
9
The rental income
generated for the University of Surrey over the period of the development is noted
in the Fig.
9
.
This rental income has generated surpluses for the University of in excess of
£65 millions which have been used to support scholarship and the Park's capital
value has enabled the University to use this as collateral for borrowings to support
the development of the University.
Occupancy rates: the historic data collected by the Park for its annual accounts and
financial planning has shown that the park operated at a level of between 90 and
97 %.
9
University of Surrey Foundation Fund Annual Report 2010-2011.
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