What makes a great innovation centre – and what doesn’t

People often ask me a deceptively simple question: “What exactly is an innovation centre?” Every time, I find myself pausing, not because I don’t know the answer, but because the term has been stretched, misused, and misunderstood to the point where it no longer has a shared definition.

I’ve been fortunate to help build and lead centres that have genuinely changed the trajectory of businesses, regions, and research programmes. I’ve also witnessed centres that were impressive on the outside and painfully hollow on the inside. Those experiences, both successes and scars, have shaped a clear view of what a great innovation centre is, and why so many miss the mark.

The truth is, an innovation centre is never about the physical asset. It is always about the impact. Yet too often, the story starts and ends with the building.

Too often, operators focus on the number of square feet they manage, forgetting that a building full of tenants is not the same as an ecosystem full of innovators. If the core purpose is lettable space or satisfying a planning condition, then call it what it is: a managed workspace, a commercial asset. There is nothing wrong with that, but it should not wear the title ‘innovation centre’.

The centres that earn it start with real challenges, asking: what problems matter here? What strengths can we build on?

At Nexus, the focus has always been on genuine, challenge-led innovation, tackling issues like health inequalities, climate resilience, robotics, AI, and productivity. These aren’t abstract marketing themes. They are grounded in regional need, national priorities, and academic depth.

The best centres treat academia not as an optional extra, but as a strategic partner.

When that relationship works, researchers and businesses explore ideas together, transfer knowledge into practice, and everyone benefits. The centre becomes a bridge, not a billboard.

Great innovation centres also build cultures where experimentation is normal, and failure is data. The goal is to understand faster, not to be right the first time. The speed of learning becomes the speed of impact. But none of that happens without intentionally curating the right people and organisations around it.

This is something West Yorkshire gets right. Its innovation community isn’t accidental; it’s designed, built on the strengths of Nexus and the University of Leeds, and aligned with the region’s priorities. Strong partnerships between anchor institutions, health bodies, and research organisations have created an ecosystem where collaboration translates into real-world impact.

The health digital twin project, developed through a close partnership between Nexus, the Health Innovation Network Yorkshire & Humber, the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, and Kidney Research UK, exemplifies this approach, transforming how chronic kidney disease is detected and treated, improving patient outcomes, reducing costs, and providing a replicable model for other long-term conditions. That is what a well-connected regional innovation ecosystem looks like in practice.

Contrast that with the centres that struggle. Built to satisfy a planning tick-box or serve a developer’s interests, they run endless workshops but deliver few pilots. They have architecture, not purpose. Activity, not impact.

So, what is an innovation centre? It is not a building, a brand, or a property strategy. It is a purposeful, human, challenge-led system that accelerates learning, collaboration, and real-world impact, one that curates its community, builds capability, and measures success through outcomes, not occupancy.

If a centre does that, it earns the name. If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t use it. Because innovation isn’t something you display, it’s something you deliver.