The value of colocation within an ecosystem is being felt at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park. Partners from sport, health care delivery, medical research and education interact regularly through planned and organic touchpoints and the results are powerful. We’re thrilled to hear more from one of our partners, UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, in this guest post by Principal, Jess Stevenson. She describes how physical proximity breaks down barriers to meaningful engagement between education and industry, and she illustrates the mutual benefit available to all involved with some inspiring and recent examples of Park-wide collaborations.
Education is disjointed from industry and young people are not equipped with the skills and understanding needed for work – this a complaint I hear a lot, and yes, it’s universally understood that we have a skills gap.
But what if the problem isn’t education’s willingness, it’s the structures that keep us apart? Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park and its partners are tackling this issue head on, together.
Engagement with reciprocal value
University Technical Colleges (UTCs) are designed to bridge the gap between industry and education. They’re specialist technical schools for 13- to 19-year-olds, with curriculum developed in partnership with employers based on local industry need. UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park specialises in health, computing and sport; a deliberate alignment with the Park’s focus on health innovation, sport science, and technology.
In the autumn of 2025, our students formed the youth voice on the advisory panel for the KidsUP Children’s HealthTech Accelerator, which took place at Canon Medical Arena – one of our neighbours at the Park. They were trained to provide feedback on healthcare technologies, playing an integral role in shaping which innovations would progress.
This isn’t corporate social responsibility or work experience for the CV. These students are providing expertise that the programme needs; a young person’s perspective on healthcare technology, while developing skills that are immediately applicable. It’s reciprocal value, not charity.
The Park brings together research centres, health tech innovators, elite sport facilities, universities, schools, and SMEs. They are united by a shared focus on health, sport and technology innovation, not random proximity. This Venn diagram of overlapping values across the Park transforms proximity into possibility. When a university researcher, a MedTech startup, and a teacher are all working on related challenges within walking distance of each other, collaboration becomes natural rather than contrived.
Openness to collaboration
UTC Sheffield is of and for the park, deeply responsive to its ecosystem and committed to its vision. But we cannot achieve much without reciprocal collaboration and willing from organisations on the Park; the invitations to events, the introductions, the meetings. Some lead to dead ends and big ideas that don’t materialise, but some lead to something wonderful.
In November 2025, the UTC hosted a research event in conjunction with the National Centre for Child Health Technology (NCCHT), bringing together MedTech industry professionals, academics, NHS staff, and education specialists to explore partnerships in health tech education.
It came from a conversation with Tom Elliott, CEO of Medilink North, which sparked an idea. Legacy Park Ltd helped shape the format. Canon Medical Arena and Sheffield Sharks provided the venue. Park stakeholders brought the right people into the room. The outcome? Research data for exploring sustainable education-industry partnerships, and students gaining direct expertise for their MedTech EPQ projects; including detailed advice on telemedicine research from working professionals.
The benefits to such collaborations are multi-layered. A computing student on work experience built a computer for a Park-based company at a fraction of commercial cost. Another student presented on stage to 100 staff from Sheffield Children’s Hospital. Teachers access cutting-edge industry events on their doorstep, network with professionals at Steel City Stadium, and develop expertise in safe collaborative spaces. That knowledge multiplies; one teacher upskilled reaches hundreds of students over years.
Shaping the next wave of health tech innovators
High-quality technical education combined with genuine industry opportunity is why students travel over an hour from Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Barnsley, and Rotherham, and why many are keen to work at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park after graduation. The UTC is creating a pipeline of young people who understand these industries from the inside.
This will never be a finished model. Innovation keeps moving, evolving, developing. The UTC continues to build new projects and collaborative responses as the ecosystem develops and partnerships adapt.
The UTC model is designed to be employer-led, with curriculum developed in partnership with industry. But this relies on regular, sustained engagement; something that geography often makes difficult. Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park removes that barrier.
The UTC’s specialisms in health, computing and sport align directly with the organisations on its doorstep. Proximity enables sustained partnerships rather than one-off visits, allowing for genuine depth of engagement. Students benefit from access to world-class facilities and resources across the Park that would be impossible to replicate within a single school.
Every partner has a part to play
Like any functioning ecosystem, Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park works because of balance and diversity, but also delicate curation. The right elements need to be present; it cannot be a random collection of businesses drawn together by convenience.
Additions like Steel City Stadium, the Business Lounge and Co-working Cafe allow for further growth and biodiversity. Each organisation has its own discrete purpose. They are only sometimes interdependent but together create something greater than the sum of their parts.
UTCs have a particular role to play in innovation ecosystems. Our outward-facing design and industry-aligned specialisms mean we can be more than passive recipients of corporate engagement. When geography and value alignment remove traditional barriers, as they do at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, UTCs can become synergists and catalysts for innovation itself.
This doesn’t happen through serendipity. It takes effort, collaboration, willing organisations, and sustained commitment to being part of an active community. Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park demonstrates what becomes possible when education, industry, research, and sport are genuinely embedded together rather than simply co-located. The work is worthwhile. The results speak for themselves.
Find out more about UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park here.
