This write-up from Elie Gamburg, Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) and Chair of the NLA Expert Panel on Innovation Districts, reflects on the panel’s initial discussions and priorities for 2026. Building on NLA’s Knowledge Networks report, the panel will focus on the design and delivery of spaces for science, tech and innovation, supporting the growth of the knowledge economy and the clustering of businesses across London to foster collaboration and innovation.
At the first meeting of the NLA Expert Panel on Innovation Districts, we discussed ongoing support for the NLA efforts in 2026 along two parallel tracks:
- planning consultation on the London Plan;
- advice and support on the upcoming 2026 NLA Health-Creating Cities insight study.
In terms of planning consultation in support of the London Plan, we discussed our role as identifying the key ways in which policies enumerated in the plan can benefit the growth of the innovation economy in Greater London. The key focus was on the ways in which the plan can lower barriers - planning barriers, investment barriers, and barriers to adaptation. A common thread to the discussion was the goal of enhanced flexibility in a very fluid innovation environment. This flexibility touches on the idea that the build environment can support both institutional and commercial uses and the co-location of both, office / tech / labs and light manufacturing uses, a range of space types to enable enterprise from start-ups to established organisations, and a range of housing alternatives including affordable, key worker (including those who work in related fields to core innovation industries like education, health-care, etc). The flexibility also touches on adjacent issues to planning like rates and on the ways in which London can help incubate investment in emerging innovation fields.
For the NLA Health-Creating Cities initiative, the focus was on the overlap of the three pillars in which innovation and health overlap: research for medical and health advancement; enhanced community care; and improved outcomes. Similarly to considerations of planning policy, there was recognition that the co-location of care delivery, community, education and research space was mutually beneficial. There was also a recognition that bringing these elements 'out' into the community and away from only innovation districts or university/medical clusters was a keyway to help improve outcomes. Lastly, there was a discussion about the ways in which London can serve as a model for healthy cities worldwide - and the way in which the innovation economy is bigger than our city, but exists in the service of people globally.
