Build the service before the skyline
Varun Sharma | Founder perspective
A remarkable science campus should be more than a remarkable image. Its real promise is what a person, team or company can do there that was difficult before. For Constellation, the architecture is an identity. The first investment case has to begin with a useful operating programme.
Space is part of the proposition
The International Association of Science Parks describes science parks through managed knowledge flows, business development and services as well as space (IASP, n.d.). That is a useful starting point because it puts the operating organisation inside the idea. A room with equipment is not automatically an accessible service. An office near a laboratory is not automatically a collaboration. Someone must define the offer, deliver it reliably and make it worth the customer's time and money. The building should support that work, with appropriate access and responsibilities.
The first hub needs a first customer problem
A team may need analysis to resolve a development uncertainty, a suitable place for its next experiments or a modest private suite near specialist support. These are different needs and they can lead to different first phases. Scottish Enterprise's accommodation research and fit-out guidance provide useful context for thinking about local requirements and the practical demands of specialist space (Scottish Enterprise, 2026). They do not establish demand for a particular NEUVIOR building. That demand has to be tested with the people who would use and pay for the proposed offer.
Four outputs, with four honest operating cases
Constellation is being conceived around research, workspace, selected technical services and public discovery. Research should produce an answer a programme can build on. Workspace should let a team undertake its next stage of work. A service should deliver an agreed package with a clear acceptance point. Public discovery should give people a way to encounter and understand medicine. Their income models differ: contracts or eligible research funding, occupancy income, service fees and a proposed mix of visitor, event, educational or sponsorship support. None should borrow an assumed surplus from another to make its own costs disappear.
A place can begin before the landmark
The first programme can use appropriate existing or leased facilities while a more dedicated hub is investigated. That gives the operating proposition a chance to develop before a full campus requires substantial capital. Existing innovation districts also offer lessons in how specialist assets, enterprise and infrastructure can sit together. AMIDS, for example, identifies manufacturing and medicines-manufacturing institutions as anchors within its district (AMIDS, n.d.). It is a reference to learn from, not a partnership claimed by NEUVIOR. Scotland remains under consideration alongside the wider location-neutral concept.
Eight should mean a network, not eight copies
Our long-term ambition is eight Constellation destinations by 2045. The number is a direction for development, not evidence that eight campuses are already needed. A subsequent destination should add a distinctive capability, customer connection or talent base and meet its own local demand test. Some services may be shared across places; others will depend on local expertise and facilities. Capital should follow those differences. The first hub must teach us what is repeatable, what needs adaptation and what is too weak to carry into another location.
The museum belongs in the operating plan
I want public discovery to be an integral part of the vision. Medicine contains extraordinary human stories, and a Discovery Gallery could make scientific work more accessible through exhibitions, workshops and encounters. Its public purpose deserves its own audience research, collaborators and budget. Research and visitor routes would have appropriate separation. This makes the museum a real programme to develop rather than an attractive label in a rendering. The same principle holds across Constellation: give each part a useful output, a responsible owner and a reason to exist before asking the building to carry the entire promise.
References
IASP (n.d.) Definitions: Science park and Area of Innovation. Available at: https://www.iasp.ws/our-industry/definitions?recordid38=0 (Accessed: 13 October 2026).
Scottish Enterprise (2026) New Market Insights for the Life Sciences Sector. Available at: https://www.scottish-enterprise.com/insights-and-events/research-evaluation-and-insight/2026/new-market-insights-for-the-life-sciences-sector (Accessed: 13 October 2026).
AMIDS (n.d.) Scotland’s New Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District. Available at: https://amids.co.uk/ (Accessed: 13 October 2026).
A decision worth discussing
NEUVIOR welcomes a specific question from an organisation considering its next programme, process or investment. The useful starting point is the decision, the people responsible and the evidence that could change it.
