Minister Jo Johnson joins groundbreaking ceremony for new building at Oxford Science Park

The park is already a base for more than 70 firms, including many in the fields of bioscience and computer technology, but bosses say a demand for office space in the city is driving its expansion.

Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson joined a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday, joining officials from site owner Magdalen College and Oxford City Council.

Hailing Oxford as a ‘global research powerhouse’, Mr Johnson added: “It is really important that through our Industrial Strategy we make the most of its potential to generate jobs and opportunities for more people.”

It was also revealed the new four-storey office and laboratory building would be named after Erwin Schrödinger, the Austrian theoretical physicist – and former Magdalen College fellow – who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933.

Alongside pioneering achievements in science, Schrödinger is best known in popular culture for devising the ‘Schrödinger’s cat’ thought experiment, which features a cat that could be both alive and dead at the same time.

The tribute to him follows a pattern in the park of naming buildings after eminent scientists with links to Magdalen College.

College bursar Rory Maw said: “Few people can claim to have had such an impact in the field of quantum theory as Erwin Schrödinger and his memory will live on in the park’s state of the art new office and laboratory building.”

City council leader Mr Price added: “Oxford’s science and technology base is booming and demand for space is massively outstripping supply. The Schrödinger Building is a much-needed addition to the supply of state of the art office and laboratory accommodation in the city.”

Science park managing director Piers Scrimshaw-Wright said there was ‘strong demand’ for high-tech office space.

Referring to the cluster of companies in various high-tech fields based in the city, he said: “The commitment to this building on a speculative basis underlines the demand coming through in Oxford’s knowledge economy.

“We are seeing a lot of capital flowing into the science and business communities and that is also coming through to accommodation.”

However, the ceremony yesterday came just weeks after warnings from the heads of 38 Oxford colleges and Oxford University’s Vice-Chancellor that the Government’s approach to the UK’s exit from the European Union risked causing an exodus of top talent.

They said leaving EU citizens in doubt of their status here could do ‘enormous damage’ to research, with two heads separately telling the Oxford Mail they knew of academics who had left or turned down jobs due to uncertainty.

But Mr Johnson yesterday said there would be no guarantees unless other EU countries followed suit.

He said: “The Prime Minister in her speech in Lancaster House made it very clear that we want this country to remain a good place for science and innovation to take place for decades to come. It will be one of the core objectives in the Brexit negotiations and we will guarantee those rights as soon as other countries offer the same reciprocal guarantees. We want to do that and we want other countries to join us.”

In her speech in Lancaster House, Theresa May told EU foreign nationals they would ‘still be welcome in this country’ after Brexit.

She added: “We want to guarantee the rights of EU citizens who are already living in Britain, and the rights of British nationals in other member states, as early as we can.

“I have told other EU leaders that we could give people the certainty they want straight away, and reach such a deal now.

“Many of them favour such an agreement – one or two others do not – but I want everyone to know that it remains an important priority for Britain, and for many other member states, to resolve this challenge as soon as possible. Because it is the right and fair thing to do.”

She also stressed in her letter triggering the formal exit process that the Government wanted to ‘strike an early agreement about their rights’.