Glasgow City Region Commits £20M to Address Shortfall in Local Lab Space

Glasgow City Region has launched a further £20 million fund dedicated to expanding the amount of laboratory space and infrastructure across the region.

The funding is targeted at developers, site owners and consortiums which are seeking to deliver new or expanded specialist laboratory space (wet, dry, incubator, or follow on).

This is the second funding Open Call for the Health and Life Sciences Cluster, following the launch in December of the Open Call for new R & D project funding proposals. It is designed to address the current shortfall in laboratory space which is restricting growth of a sector that offers enormous future potential for the region.

The focus on the Health and Life Sciences cluster was underpinned by detailed analysis on the local innovation ecosystem by the region’s Intelligence Hub to identify the sectors that offered the most potential to grow the economy, validated by industry experts.

The local Health and Life Sciences sector now supports over 10,000 jobs and has seen a 47 percent increase in employment between 2019 and 2023. It is recognized to have enormous future potential, with its medtech, biotech, and pharma and biopharma-sub sectors particularly strong, and Scottish Enterprise projecting a 300 percent growth potential in turnover in the cluster across Scotland by 2035. The region already accounts for almost 60 percent of the total turnover across the country.

Susan Aitken, chair of the Glasgow City Region Cabinet and leader of Glasgow City Council, said in a press release, “The Health and Life Sciences sector is increasingly important to Scotland’s economy and is projected to grow by 300 percent in the next decade. Glasgow is already at the forefront of that. To allow this dynamic sector to deliver on its potential, for companies to be able to scale-up, and to ensure more opportunities are available to new entrants, we need more quality laboratory space in the years ahead. This new funding recognizes the importance of infrastructure to the innovation economy and compliments the recent £25 million call for ambitious research and development proposals. It also builds on the successful partnerships with our universities and businesses to nurture this vital sector and deliver future jobs and prosperity across the city region.”

Project proposals must meet eligibility criteria and come with private sector match funding of at least 2:1 from non-public sources. For every one pound of public spend, the projects must realise or enable £2 of private investment.

Applications for funding can be made by organizations based outside of the Region. But the lab space must be based within the region. Applications can be made through the Glasgow City Region Open Call website and must be submitted by 20th March 2026, with a shortlisting process completed in May 2026.

The Open Call forms part of the wider UK Government Local Innovation Partnerships Fund (LIPF) that will invest up to £500 million into the development and scaling of high-potential innovation clusters across the UK. It is designed to support both established clusters with a proven track record of innovation, and emerging clusters that are in earlier stages of development but have significant potential to generate economic value.

Along with Manchester and West Midlands, Glasgow will benefit from a £50 million funding pot over five years. Glasgow’s Local Innovation Partnership Fund will be made up of: 

• £25 million from the Open Call for commercialization of research and development.

• £20 million for new lab space to support growth in the sector, since research has identified a lack of lab space in the sector is a barrier to growth.

• £5 million for a complementary skills program to be delivered via the region’s colleges to provide career opportunities for residents across the whole region and meet the demand for life and health sciences professionals as the cluster grows.

The new funding follows on the back of and learning from the successful Innovation Accelerator pilot scheme for which Glasgow City Region benefitted from £43 million in UK Government funding to support local breakthrough technologies—from extended reality to advances in fintech, quantum computing, and chemputation, along with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.