Thursday January 29th 2026
River Clyde
Written by Glasgow View Reporter, Liam Eunson
Glasgow’s 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).
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.
With the Health and Life Science sector explained as ‘increasingly important to Scotland’s economy’, the local sector now supports over 10,000 jobs and has seen a 47% increase in employment between 2019 and 2023.
It is recognised to have enormous future potential, with its MedTech, BioTech, and Pharma and Biopharma-sub sectors particularly strong, and Scottish Enterprise projecting a 300% growth potential in turnover in the cluster across Scotland by 2035.
The Glasgow region already accounts for almost 60% of the total turnover across the country.
Susan Aitken, Chair of the Glasgow City Region Cabinet and Leader of Glasgow City Council said:
“The Health and Life Sciences sector is increasingly important to Scotland’s economy and is projected to grow by three hundred per cent 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 recognises the importance of infrastructure to the innovation economy and compliments the recent £25million 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.”
For every one pound of public spend, the projects in proposal must realise or enable two pounds of private investment with project proposals needing to meet eligible criteria and come with private sector match finding of at least 2:1 from non-public sources.
Applications for the funding can be made by organisations based outside of the Glasgow region but the lab space must be based within the city.
Applications can be made through the … 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.
The new funding follows on the back of the successful Innovation Accelerator pilot scheme for which Glasgow City Region benefitted from £43 million in UK Government funding to support local breakthrough technologies.
Tweet Share on Facebook
