Richard Templer wants west London to be a Silicon Valley of the green economy

Professor Richard Templer has a simple ambition, to nurture the innovations that will shape the 21st century.

Professor Richard Templer has a simple ambition: to nurture the innovations that will shape the 21st century.

He is Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment, at Imperial College London, and was formerly Director of the UK Co-Location Centre for Climate KIC.

Professor Templer wants west London to become a 'Silicon Valley for the green economy'.

This echoes the message from former Energy Minister, Lord Barker, to turn London into a "genuine, resilient and sustainable city fit for the 21st century". At an event at Imperial earlier in the year, he called on London's future mayor to use innovative low-carbon technologies to "help shape our city and create a magnet for investment".

In an interview today with the website edie.net, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan underlined the role for businesses and technology innovations in improving air pollution and peoples' health, in the Capital.

"Innovation and technology are crucial," Khan said. "With technological advances, electric car batteries now run far better than they did five years ago. We've got to use this innovation to make sure we encourage people to change their behaviours, and I'm sure we can do that."

In this interview, Professor Templer talks about how the right mix of people and ideas could benefit one of London's most promising regeneration areas.

Old Oak and Park Royal sit alongside Imperial's major new White City Campus, which is earmarked by the College for co-locating world class researchers, businesses and higher education partners.

The piece first appeared as a feature in the annual Grantham Institute Outlook 2016-17.

The Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment, is one of Imperial’s global challenge institutes, which aims to shape the College’s priorities in this area: to inform government, business and industry, and civil society; to create and appraise expert knowledge; to train the next generation of leaders; and to support innovation.

Tell us about your ambitions for London innovators.

"Building on my experience with Climate-KIC, a partnership set up by industry, universities and government to push green innovation, I now want to support clean technology in the Capital with injections of cash, ideas and talent.

How is it going so far?

"In the first phase, I’m working with entrepreneurship expert Andrew Burford to run an acceleration programme for new start-ups to take ideas that address climate change to the market.

"So far this approach has led to 60 per cent of the ideas being commercialised, finding $80 million of investment since 2012.

What opportunities will there be for budding innovators?

"With Imperial’s Dr Mike Tennant, we are planning to grow the skills base for the green economy with the launch in 2018 of a new MSc for people wanting to work in clean-technology business.

"Drawing on expertise from across Imperial, the degree will allow students to become innovators with their own projects, supported by experts in both business and science. We always say: 'You can’t learn innovation from a book.'"

How is this linked with Imperial’s long term commitments?

"Imperial is expanding into White City, a neglected area of west London that I hope can become the clean technology innovation hub for London. My vision is that this will do for low-carbon innovation what the Stanford Science Park has done for Silicon Valley and the digital economy.

So this must be great for the Capital?

"London is Europe’s global city and climate change is a global issue, so it is logical for low-carbon technology to concentrate here.

"A quarter of the UK’s low-carbon business is in this region and we have enthusiasm for this initiative from local and national government, business and the College.