The first question is how to ensure that the accommodation is successful in purely physical terms? This is already being addressed, as follows:
- It must be of high-quality to ensure it has the necessary kudos and image among resident and visiting scientists – the facility will be pitched to equal facilities of research universities and institutions across the UK that one might expect to find at Edinburgh, Warwick or Southampton, but will avoid the expense of trying to match the likes of Oxford or Cambridge.
- It must have the types of rooms and services that its occupants will be using – a dialogue with the future occupants is ensuring that this will happen but more is required.
However, it is widely recognised that simply providing a building as accommodation for a number of organisations will not achieve the added value benefits that could emerge from the new faciltiy. If left alone, it would be all too easy for the occupants to pursue their own itineraries and fail to take advantage of the opportunties that the facility could hold. The question now is how the Centre for Health Science concept and its role in achieving the immediate aims of the sector can be meaningfully fulfilled. What is the substance that will turn these opportunities into a reality? The following points are a few ideas:
Building
- To ensure there are plenty of shared facilities, such as an attractive, early/late opening café
- To ensure there are relevant, high-quality resources, such as a well-stocked and maintained research learning centre
- To have a suitable, strict entry policy to ensure that only organisations that will enhance its healthcare and medical-related science manifesto can become future occupants
- To be co-located with other related and relevant organisations – the facility will, by definition, be part of the wider Beechwood healthcare campus.
Events
- To hold training and skills development courses, both for professionals and for volunteers
- To hold regular lecture series and symposia, perhaps during lunchtimes
- To hold longer seminars and conferences to enhance the reputation of the facility
- To ensure that these events are open to people working outside the faciltiy itself
- To ensure regular invites are sent to key researchers in and the , as well as relevant international players
- To host events geared to drumming up enthusiasm among funders and venture capitalists
Management
- To have an active management structure – possibly on two-tiers: the first to represent the occupants of the facility; the second to represent the broader sector organisations ranging from other education and research institutions, commercial companies of all sizes, and the voluntary sector
- To ensure the management team is headed by a dynamic CEO who has the energy to galvanise the sector into action
- To ensure the management team’s roles and responsibilities covers communication and events as well as the day-to-day running of the facility
- To communicate, probably through a newsletter and a website, the activities and news of the facility
- To work closely with the support agency Fusion
Next Steps
One of the key outcomes of a stakeholders meeting held on August 5 August 2004 was the requirement to establish a Centre for Heath Science users group at an early juncture, involving all Phase One and Phase Two stakeholders. Ann Markham, chairwoman of NES, was charged to take this task forward. It is recommended that the users group comprise at least one senior representative from each of the following orgainisations:
- NHS Highland (Dental Institute and Clinical Skills)
-
University of
Stirling
-
University of
Aberdeen
- UHIMI
- NHS Education for Scotland
- Centre for Rural Health
- INBSE
- Lifescan Scotland Ltd. (large company)
- In Vivo Medical Diagnostics Limited (SME)
