A new £9.4 million science centre will be unveiled by the Government minister for science and innovation tomorrow.

Lord Sainsbury will officially open the Freeman Centre at the University of Sussex. It will be the university's new science policy research centre.

It will also be the new home of the University of Brighton's Centre for Research in Innovation Management and is named after the research unit's founding director, Professor Christopher Freeman.

In his opening speech, Lord Sainsbury is expected to address the growing importance of science and technology research and the need for effective science and technology policies.

The current director Professor Ben Martin said: "We are delighted Lord Sainsbury is able to attend. He is familiar with our work and the fundamental contributions it has made in the field of science policy research."

The Freeman Centre houses more than 60 researchers and 200 postgraduate students, making it one of the largest and most advanced centres of science policy, innovation and technology research in the world.

Funding for the centre, which is in a specially-designed low-energy building, came from the Government's Joint Infrastructure Fund and the Scientific Research Infrastructure Fund.

The opening will be followed by a three-day international conference on innovation dedicated to the late Professor Keith Pavitt, a key figure in the development of science policy research, who died last December aged 65.

Professor Pavitt's research spanned economics, management and science and technology policy and the conference is organised around the major themes of his work.

Tuesday November 11, 2003