Wood Centre
for Innovation

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01865 945500

Contact

About the Wood Centre for Innovation

  • Wood Centre for Innovation, Quarry Road, Headington, Oxford, OX3 8SB
Map showing the Wood Centre for Innovation and the Oxford Centre for Innovation.
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There is limited on-site parking, bike racks and EV charging ports for visitors.

The Wood Centre for Innovation is situated in Oxford’s world-leading Headington Science Cluster, close to the University of Oxford’s Old Road Campus, the NHS research and teaching hospitals and Oxford Brookes University.   

A purpose-built hub for life science and deeptech start-ups, the Wood Centre for Innovation provides innovation space for companies to breathe, work and grow. The Linden Building offers Class 2 R&D lab space, offices, co-working space in Barclays Eagle Labs and, from spring 2026, the Aspen building will offer an additional 16,500 sq ft (15,500 sq m) of laboratory and office grow-on space.

Set in 15 acres of woodland, the site includes a shared facilities lab, café, meeting spaces and conference facilities. 

Linden and Aspen buildings

Our spaces

Icon for office space

Office space

With spaces of all sizes, our office packages include admin and office support, a café, and access to bookable meeting and event spaces.  

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Icon for Lab space

Lab space

From 50 sq ft to over 1,500 sq ft,  our high-quality Class 2 R&D lab spaces are perfect for companies specialising in life sciences and deeptech.

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Shared facilities lab

Our shared facilities lab offers access to specialised equipment and our in-house lab supervisor. 

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Icon for co-working space

Co-working space

Barclays Eagle Labs offers co-working space for 40 entrepreneurs with a wide range of business support, including mentoring and events. 

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Meeting space

The centre offers meeting rooms for up to 12 people, a state-of-the-art conference auditorium for up to 100 people, a foyer and outdoor deck. 

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Virtual office

For entrepreneurs who would like a business address but don’t need physical office space, a virtual office package is the perfect solution. 

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A view of one of the labs at the Wood Centre for Innovation with workspaces and shelves full of scientific equipment.
A colleague accessing the liquid nitrogen in the shared lab.
The exterior of the Wood Centre for Innovation showing the wood panelled building in the background and wild flowers growing in the foreground.
People walking outside the Wood Centre for Innovation past the mature trees.
Using the outdoor deck at lunchtime at the Wood Centre for Innovation.
A view of the pond in the grounds of the Wood Centre for Innovation.
Colleagues in at a meeting within the co-working area in the Barclays Eagle Labs, Wood Centre for Innovation
A view, taken in summer, of the Wood Centre for Innovation from the rear, surrounded by mature trees.

Facilities and amenities

  • Kitchen
  • Shower
  • Secure bike parking
  • Superfast broadband
  • 24 hour access
  • ~CCTV and security

Why choose us

Thriving community

Our centres offer you much more than serviced office space. When you join us, you are joining a vibrant community of like-minded science and tech businesses. With companies working in a wide range of areas including quantum, deeptech, life sciences and healthtech, it is a community to help you build and grow.

Business support

We understand what it takes to make a company successful and we appreciate that you need support and know-how to scale and grow. That’s why when you join our centres, you also have access to our expert business support service, run by Innovation Director, Wendy Tindsley. Our goal is to see your business thrive.

Close to centres of R&D

Our innovation centres benefit from prime city locations near Oxford’s leading research and development hubs. This proximity enables companies to foster collaboration and offers unparalleled access to cutting-edge expertise, talent, and technology. Clients gain a strategic advantage by being part of a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Business events

We run tailored networking and knowledge events, such as the Exit Right series, for companies in our centres. Developed by The Oxford Trust, Barclays Eagle Labs and Oxford Innovation Space, Exit Right is an expert-led event series for founders and senior leadership teams to support start-ups looking to successfully grow and exit their businesses.

Joint site access

When you join one of the Trust’s innovation centres, you have access to both our sites – the Wood Centre for Innovation in Headington and the Oxford Centre for Innovation in the city centre – giving you additional locations for meetings, co-working space and becoming part of a wider business community.

Supporting the next generation

The income from our innovation centres is reinvested in supporting the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs through our STEM education and engagement programmes. Run by Science Oxford, our programmes aim to lay the foundations of science learning and build science capital.

Our innovation community

Testimonials

Lumai's Dr James Spall, stands outside the entrance of the Wood Centre for Innovation.
The Lumai team love being based at the Wood Centre for Innovation. We’ve found it a very convivial place to work. It’s also great to have the chance to meet other companies and The Oxford Trust team are delightful to work with. I would wholeheartedly recommend the centre to others who are thinking about moving here.

Dr James Spall

CTO and Co-founder, Lumai

Portrait of Natalie Jackson, Marketing and Commercial Manager, UK outside the Wood Centre for Innovation with foliage in the background.
We wanted a lab space where we could bring in people to showcase the our work, and the Wood Centre was a natural choice. The reception is bright and friendly, with a lovely café. One of the other deciding factors was the outreach work with schools that The Oxford Trust carries out through Science Oxford, which gives the place a vibrant buzz. It’s wonderful to see children coming in to learn about STEM.

Nathalie Jackson

Marketing Manager, Red Shift Bio

Portrait of Jack Fertility CEO Lily, Elsner outside the Wood Centre for Innovation.
We are pleased to be part of The Oxford Trust’s Escalator Support Programme to enable Jack Fertility’s male fertility research for our novel postal sperm test. We have support in the form of lab space, investment sourcing support, and PR. Our Oxford-based team are pursuing ground-breaking new frontiers, in a beautiful location.

Lily Elsner

CEO, Jack Fertility

portrait of Alex Batchelor from Pictura Bio outside the Wood Centre for Innovation
PicturaBio chose the Wood Centre for Innovation because it offered collaboration between team members working in their office on AI imaging software and those working in an adjoining laboratory. Access to both laboratory and office space in the same building is not always possible but getting access to both is rare.

Alex Batchelor

Co-founder & CEO, PicturaBio

Valerie Berryman-Bousquet, VP of Helio Display Materials.
We chose the Wood Centre for Innovation because of its flexible and proactive approach to meeting Helio’s requirements. We had some very detailed wet lab requirements, which we might have been able to get elsewhere, but the Wood Centre team were prepared to go the extra mile to deliver a facility that really is a perfect fit for Helio

Valérie Berryman-Bousquet

Helio Display Materials

Joe Illingworth, from DJS Antibodies stands outside the Wood Centre for Innovation.
There is no better place for DJS Antibodies to take its next steps as part of the biopharmaceutical company AbbVie. The Wood Centre for Innovation laboratories are state-of-the-art, and we are in walking distance of four world-leading Oxford University research hospitals, providing easy links to some of the best academics in the world, allowing us to contribute to and benefit from this world-leading biomedical ecosystem.

Joe Illingworth

Director of Research, DJS Antibodies

CSO Kevin Maskell, Bioarchitech
Cancer patients are in desperate need of the promising immunotherapies that we have in development. The Oxford Trust and the supportive community they have built at the Wood Centre for Innovation is an ideal home for our team to focus on the research needed to make these treatments a reality.

Kevin Maskell

CSO & co-founder Bioarchitech

Portrait of Alex Greenhalgh, CEO of Spintex at the Wood Centre for Innovation.
We chose The Wood Centre for Innovation because as our business developed, we needed immediate expansion space, as well as for the benefit from the expert business support that comes with the space through its Innovation Director, who is always on hand to aid us. It’s great to be part of a community which is made up of so many different companies while being located in Oxford and surrounded by lovely woodland!

Alex Greenhalgh

Founder of Spintex

Portrait of John Blackwood, VP, Biology, Samsara Therapeutics outside the Wood Centre for Innovation.
The Wood Center for Innovation has been an ideal home Samsara’s Biology Team hive as we incubate and innovate new therapeutics for treating neurodegenerative disorders. We love socializing in the café, the woodland setting of the laboratory space, and the proximity to Oxford University.

John Blackwood

VP Biology, Samsara Therapeutics

Our innovation centre team

Our innovation centres are managed by Oxford Innovation Space, orginally a spin-out of the Trust. They are innovation centre experts and run a network of 31 centres in the UK and Ireland. 

Oxford Innovation Space logo

Wendy Tindsley, Innovation Director

An experienced business support professional, Wendy has a scientific background and experience of running several businesses. She has a wealth of experience in obtaining funding for R&D and capital investment. With extensive knowledge of innovative technologies across different sectors, Wendy’s passion is helping ambitious businesses to achieve rapid and sustainable growth.

Graham Monger, Centre Manager at the Oxford Centre for Innovation.

Graham Monger, Centre Manager

Graham is an accomplished Centre Manager with a proven track record of delivering exceptional results across multiple sites. He excels in managing three dynamic centres within Oxford, providing flexible office and laboratory spaces and comprehensive business support services to SMEs. With a commitment to excellence, Graham is dedicated to fostering a vibrant and supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs and businesses.

Cleopatra Chapple, Assistant Centre Manager, Wood Centre for Innovation.

Cleopatra Chapple, Assistant Centre Manager

Cleo has a wealth of experience in customer service. She has worked in the energy industry for over 10 years, managing corporate and SME customers. She has also worked in a business centre managing offices as an Assistant Manager.

Owen Wheeler, Lab Supervisor at the Wood Centre for Innovation.

Owen Wheeler, Lab Supervisor

Owen has a background in cell biology, GMP and lab management with a wealth of experience in lab operation and equipment servicing. He has experience in managing a variety of labs, including Category 3, tissue culture and PCR labs. Owen's passion is being part of a company he knows is making a difference to lives of others.

Abi Sule, Customer Experience Assistant at the Wood Centre for Innovation.

Abi Sule, Customer Experience Assistant

Abi is Nigerian but was born and raised in the city of Padova, Italy. She has just finished her law studies at Oxford Brookes.

Get in touch

Our centre managers will be happy to answer any queries, send you information or arrange a tour. Contact us using the form below or call 01865 261400 (Oxford Centre for Innovation) or 01865 945500 (Wood Centre for Innovation).

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Our sister centre

Oxford Centre for Innovation

Our sister centre, the Oxford Centre for Innovation, is based at Blue Boar Court on Alfred Street in central Oxford. The centre also has affordable work and meeting spaces for start-up and early stage companies specialising in science and technology, close to the University of Oxford’s science facilities, the Said Business School and social entrepreneurship centres. Facilities at our city centre site are available to all companies working in our centres. 

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