THE Sussex Innovation Centre is coming of age this summer as the business and technology hub celebrates its 21st anniversary.

Before many students at the University of Sussex were born, in June 1996, the incubator had already opened on campus and started taking in local start-ups and university spin-outs.

The organisation looks very different today with a sister site in Croydon linking its Falmer community to a growing network in South London and a new, purpose-built space alongside Brighton Station in the heart of the city opening later this year.

The original centre has been a home to almost twice as many tenants since it expanded in 2003 and the university is developing plans to establish a bio-innovation hub nearby.

The ten or so enterprises that arrived in the centre’s first year have since evolved into more than 150 members of all shapes and sizes.

One and two-person app development teams work on their laptops in Croydon’s collaborative space.

Sussex academics meet IP lawyers in the boardroom to propose commercial products of their research.

Ambitious scale-up businesses come to their Falmer offices each day to tackle fresh challenges, employing the latest advances in engineering, software and technology.

More than 30 support staff from a range of backgrounds now work alongside executive director Mike Herd who first arrived months after the centre was opened with £2 million capital provided by Brighton and Hove and East Sussex Councils and both the city’s universities.

Sussex became full owners nearly a decade ago and the university’s management consider the organisation an important front door for introducing academia and commercial partners.

Mike said: “It’s very exciting to be finally opening the Brighton site later this year after a long gestation period.

“By the time Sussex Innovation Brighton launches we’ll have been working in Croydon for nearly two years and we’ve learned a lot during that time about what works well in a city centre environment.

“The new hubs help us to expand our member portfolio into different areas.

“We can run different kinds of community events and deliver more to local businesses coming in from outside the organisation and we’ve found that our virtual members tend to have a much more active relationship with us when they are able to drop in to use the space on their way to and from other appointments in town.

“The atmosphere and membership profiles of the two campuses are quite different.

“Croydon and Brighton are quite distinct from each other but the members at each site are also part of this much larger community, all united by the demands of growing their businesses.

“Essentially what we’re aiming to do in Brighton is create more touchpoints for collaboration and sharing ideas.

“Our offering isn’t just about affordable office space for start-ups, you can come in and work with us as a large corporate or a one-man band.”

The interior plans for the Brighton site are yet to be fully finalised but are likely to feature an open plan collaborative space and several larger offices, intended to provide grow-on space for some of the more established members as their businesses mature.

The Sussex Innovation support team is available to offer advice and deliver practical work to the whole network.

Most of the senior staff have run their own businesses, experience that support manager Peter Lane considers crucial.

He said: “It’s often a lonely and stressful occupation being an entrepreneur.

“There are plenty of highs and lows involved.

“By having people around who’ve been there and done it, we can respond to those crises of confidence everyone goes through when they’ve got to put food on the table, have been working 18-hour days and worrying about cash flow.

“Sometimes our team needs to roll up their sleeves and work on a big strategic project for a business owner and at other times the best thing to do is simply give them a pep talk and let them know you’ve got their back.”

Among the current membership businesses tipped for big things are Ambiental, who use satellite imaging to model the risk of floods across the globe, Emteq, developing technology to accurately portray facial expressions in virtual reality, and Filmstro, a soundtrack software studio that works with partners including Adobe and the BBC.

Chris Moore, managing director of tenant business Specialist Language Courses, said: “The centre has been a great base for us.

“Having the opportunity to talk and share experience with staff, other members and the two mentors we gained from presenting to potential investors has been invaluable.”

In recent years the centre’s staff have been able to offer more concerted practical support as well as these more intimate interventions.

Ten Sussex graduates and placement year students join the team each year as part of the catalyst scheme, a programme that markets itself as “the ultimate temp agency”.

The support team takes the burden of training and mentoring away from businesses who need temporary staff and ensures every catalyst project has a real strategic purpose and tangible outcome. Companies only take on a catalyst team member for the amount of time they need to carry out these defined projects, meaning students get experience of working with a range of different, innovative and exciting young businesses.

RECORD YEAR FOR PLACEMENTS AS MORE THAN 60 JOBS ARE CREATED

SUSSEX Innovation has announced record economic impact figures from its catalyst work placement scheme over the past 12 months.

The scheme, now entering its fourth year, is supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

It provides a fully paid year-long placement to Sussex students and recent graduates who are trained and supported to deliver a range of business development projects for local start-ups and SMEs.

The success of the scheme is measured each year in terms of additional job creation, revenue generation and investment secured by participating companies.

By all of these metrics, 2015-16 was a record year.

More than 60 jobs and 20 industry placements were created while cumulative revenues reached more than double the £1.5 million target.

Programme manager Lucy Paine said: “Based on client feedback, we had a feeling that things were going well.

“Due to the types of early-stage business we often work with, we’ve always felt that it would take a year or two for real economic growth to arrive as a result of our work.

“Now that we’ve been up and running for more than three years, the numbers are really vindicating that.”

To date the catalyst team has worked on more than 300 projects for more than 100 clients from across the South East.

Projects range from market insight and customer engagement to social media management and communications activity.

InCrowd, a sports marketing business underpinned by revolutionary mobile technology, is a standout example of the scheme in action.

The business has grown rapidly, quadrupling in size during 2016 and creating 16 full-time roles.