The Bioscape research campus in Edegem, near Antwerp University is not going ahead after all. Planning permission was revoked in August and now investors are pulling out reports daily Gazet van Antwerpen. The university has confirmed the news. “Young researchers will now have to develop their medicines and therapies elsewhere,” the university says. Employers’ organisation Voka Antwerp-Waasland is disappointed hundreds of jobs will be lost.
Is ditching of plans for Antwerp University’s Bioscape research campus a missed opportunity?
Colin Clapson
Published:
Bioscape was to be a large research campus comprising several buildings in Edegem, on land owned by the university. It was intended to provide space for young researchers from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, close to the university and Antwerp University Hospital.
However, the planning permission process has been dragging on for some time. At the end of August, the planning appeals council revoked the planning permission following complaints from local residents concerned about heavy traffic and parking problems. The council also felt that the impact on traffic had not been adequately assessed.
The fact that the Bioscape research campus will not be built is a missed opportunity for Antwerp University says Johan Wets, sociologist and migration specialist at HIVA, the research institute for Labour and Society at Leuven University. “On the one hand, students will not be able to specialise further; on the other, fewer people from abroad will be attracted to the university,” says Wets.
“Young researchers may now leave Antwerp and perhaps even go abroad” the university claimed following the news that Bioscape will not be going ahead after all.
Here young researchers from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors were to be provided with facilities close to the university and Antwerp University Hospital.
Less interest from abroad
Migration specialist Johan Wets does not wish to speak of a ‘brain drain’. A brain drain refers to the departure of highly educated and talented individuals to other regions or countries to work there. “The project has not been realised, so it is difficult to use that term,” says Wets. “But it is certainly a missed opportunity.”
“Highly qualified people could have developed further in their discipline,” Wets continues. “That opportunity for new specialisations is disappearing. In addition, fewer people will come here from abroad. International researchers could have filled 500 jobs.”
Added value for businesses
“Missed business opportunities, missed employment, missed research and innovation,” says a disappointed Bart Van Meerbergen of Vaccinopolis, a specialised clinical research facility at Antwerp University dedicated to researching infectious diseases and testing new vaccines and treatments. For many years he worked at a company based at Bioscape in Ghent and is a strong advocate a similar project in Edegem, where Vaccinopolis is also based.
At Vaccinopolis, there is extensive collaboration with companies in the pharmaceutical sector. “If those companies were to want to set up in Antwerp, it would have been a major advantage for them to be able to do so at Bioscape, as it is close to Vaccinopolis, Antwerp University and Antwerp University Hospital,” says Van Meerbergen. “Some companies wanted to relocate part of their operations here.”
A dilemma like the one faced by nurses in Kenya
Migration expert Johan Wets compares the situation to that of nurses in Kenya who cannot find work in their own country and therefore move to the United Kingdom. “They do not leave Kenya because there is no need for nurses, but because there are insufficient resources for the medical sector,” explains Wets.
‘So, whilst there may be enough qualified people here to take on a job as a researcher, there are no opportunities for them to do so. In that case, there are two possibilities: they move away, or they look for a job in another sector.’