The Daphne Steele building at the University of Huddersfield is a collaboration between the university and the local NHS trust. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer View image in fullscreen The Daphne Steele building at the University of Huddersfield is a collaboration between the university and the local NHS trust. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer Biotechnology industry Healthy cooperation: how northern universities are linking with NHS trusts to drive innovation Backed by a mix of private and public finance, Huddersfield and Manchester are among many in the academic sector helping to create jobs and growth
Phillip Inman Tue 9 Jun 2026 07.00 CEST Last modified on Tue 9 Jun 2026 17.28 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google H uddersfield might appear an unlikely setting for a thriving health research complex. The West Yorkshire town is best known for its manufacturing heritage, but has quickly become a honey pot for private sector businesses keen to collaborate with the town’s university in a push for the latest medical breakthroughs.
Next month, the driving force behind the University of Huddersfield’s national health innovation campus, Prof Liz Towns-Andrews, expects to get the go-ahead for the third of seven planned eco-buildings for research and tech development clustered near the town centre.
It was only in March that the £55m centre named after the local healthcare advocate Emily Siddon was opened by the then health innovation minister, Zubir Ahmed, boasting five floors and the UK’s first MRI scanner simulator. “It’s an MRI without the magnets, and yet you wouldn’t know it wasn’t a fully functioning machine,” says the Yorkshire-born Towns-Andrews.
The project – fuelled by a mix of private and public finance – provides a model for the UK’s universities as they tackle ailing balance sheets. With Oxford and Cambridge well established as hubs for medical and biotech spin-outs, other universities are working with health trusts and councils to further research and support local economies.
A recent report by the University of East London (UEL), which examined the accounts of 160 universities, found that almost 40 were near bankruptcy and had just two months of cash in the bank. Wes Streeting, before he quit as health secretary, had put in place investment funds to boost the building of new health centres and hospitals, but a shortage of funding has meant many have faced delays.
By contrast, Huddersfield had an operating surplus of about £10m in the 2024-25 financial year and is far from going bust. Beyond the MRI simulator, the Huddersfield complex boasts another new idea – Britain’s first community diagnostic centre on a university campus, developed in partnership with Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.
View image in fullscreen Prof Liz Towns-Andrews, the regional and business lead for the National Health Innovation Campus at the University of Huddersfield, has insisted all the buildings be constructed to meet green benchmarks. Photograph: Paul Cooper/University of Huddersfield Renowned in the university sector as an innovator, Towns-Andrews has insisted all the buildings be constructed to meet green and health benchmarks – known as the Well standard – that will rank them in the top 50 worldwide.
One of her aims is to raise the region’s dire levels of worker productivity. “Yorkshire and Humberside has one of the lowest outputs per hour in England, which makes it among the worst places for productivity.”
“To me it wasn’t rocket science that getting people healthy, fit and able to work would make the single biggest impact on productivity,” she says.
In part, the region’s universities, health trusts and councils have joined forces to ensure they secured some of the £2bn from West Yorkshire’s investment zone but also because their own funding has faced a squeeze over the past decade.
Yet, the building blocks of many modern local economy increasingly rest on bustling higher and further education institutions and health trusts. They are among the biggest employers, with financial clout, and have certain futures, allowing private sector businesses to sign long-term agreements.
Many of these businesses are manufacturers of health devices and drugs which see the UK’s globally recognised university sector as a bog attraction. For some companies, the attraction of Oxford and Cambridge has waned, pushing universities in other areas of the country to the fore.
As a sign of Britain’s industrial revival, the opening in Manchester next year of a FTSE 100 health company’s research and development centre provides a clear sense of direction.