Our Innovation centres

A key part of The Oxford Trust’s mission is to support the innovation landscape in our region. We have owned and run a number of innovation centres in Oxford since the Trust was founded 35 years ago.

Our patrons, Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood, experienced first-hand the challenges that face young tech entrepreneurs when trying to set up a new business. Local, affordable, flexible office space was hard to come by when they set-up Oxford Instruments in 1959. In 1986, the Wood’s bought an old builders’ yard in Osney Mead and used the site to launch the Science and Technology Enterprise Project (STEP) Centre to support other Oxford-based science and tech start-ups. It was the first innovation centre in the region and, in fact, the UK, and a catalyst for Oxfordshire’s ecosystem of innovation incubators and science parks that we see today.

We know that many science and tech start-ups still struggle to find affordable office space. Our Oxford Centre for Innovation, or OCFI, right in the heart of Oxford, and the Wood Centre for Innovation or WCFI at Stansfeld Park in Headington provide reasonably-priced office space, lab and workshop space, flexible meeting and conference rooms and business support for for local start-up and grow-on science and tech business and associated organisations.

If you want to find out more about our innovation centres, contact the Oxford Innovation team on 01865 261400 or 01865 945 200.