Tenant Companies: Lessons Learned from the Planning, Development and Management of the Surrey Research Park

The Surrey Research Park has been operating for over 25 years. It is a carefully planned and purpose built facility. It has supported over 500 companies in that period. Of the three stakeholders (government, university and tenants) in the Park the tenants are the most important because of their role in driving innovation and building competitiveness; however, they are also the most fragile. This paper reports on data collected from 488 of the tenants that have located and developed on the Park since it opened. It covers some of the principles on which it has been planned, developed and managed and how tenants have responded positively to this offering. It is clear that it has had a very significant impact on regional economic development because of success of the tenants. The broad conclusions of the project are that performance of the Park has been influenced by the way it has been planned and managed and more importantly the prevailing local and sub-regional economic conditions which have influenced tenants. In addition the paper sets out some generic lessons that have been learnt from the study.