Royal reception for boss of Sussex Innovation Centre
HM Queen Elizabeth II congratulated Mike Herd on his Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion when she hosted a reception for the winners at Buckingham Palace.
Vince Cable MP presented Mike Herd with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion during a celebratory event at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
Cheering crowds surrounded Buckingham Palace as the boss of the Sussex Innovation Centre attended a reception this week. Although the birth of a future king was the focus of their attention, Mike Herd was there to celebrate his own special moment with the current monarch.
Mr Herd, Executive Director of the University’s business-incubation hub, was recognised in the annual Queen’s Awards for his efforts to promote regional businesses.
And on Tuesday (23 July), HM Queen Elizabeth II congratulated him on his Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion when she hosted a reception for the winners.
Earlier in the day the Business Secretary, Vince Cable MP, had presented Mr Herd and just seven other “exceptional individuals” with their awards during a celebratory event in their honour at the government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
Mr Herd said: “It’s a tremendous honour to receive this award. It’s nice because it’s an affirmation of when you really put yourself into something.”
Since 1997 Mr Herd has supported the growth of more than 300 businesses through the Sussex Innovation Centre, which was conceived as the flagship development of the ‘Sussex Academic Corridor’, a collaboration between public, academic and business sectors.
Based at the Falmer campus of the University of Sussex, it offers flexible, professional office space and a range of in-house support services to assist start-up businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and university spin-outs during the vital early years of their operation.
From an initial public investment of under £2million, the Centre has provided a significant boost to the local economy over the past 16 years, with member companies attracting more than £25million of investment and generating well over £500million of cumulative revenue.
Mr Herd’s method of entrepreneurial mentoring is focused on providing support that is tailored to each individual company’s needs and ambitions, founded in extensive market research and ‘finding the first customer’.
This approach is reflected throughout the Centre’s professional support structure and, under Mr Herd’s guidance, it has seen the vast majority of its members grow into successful, profitable and sustainable businesses. The Centre has frequently been cited as an example of best practice for business incubation.
More recently the Innovation Centre has taken a direct role in the commercialisation of research at the University of Sussex, with a notable success in the joint development of electric potential sensor (EPS) technology with Plessey Semiconductors – resulting in an award-winning sensor, a hand-held electrocardiogram device.
Now wholly owned by the University of Sussex, the Centre is home to more than 100 member companies, spanning a range of sectors from engineering and biomedical research to new media, design and IT.
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