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The University of Bristol will today mark one year until it opens its new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus.
It described the area, now under construction behind Bristol Temple Meads railway station, as “an exciting new destination for education, innovation and community collaboration”.
It is also acting as the catalyst for the wider 334-acre Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. the UK’s largest regeneration project, which aims to create 22,000 jobs and 10,000 new homes, alongside new public and green spaces.
By opening a second campus in Bristol, the university says it will be far more embedded in the city than ever before, becoming an inclusive hub for local communities who will be welcome to use the facilities and open areas.
Parts of the campus have been shaped in consultation with civic and community partners as dedicated spaces for groups to work together to address local, national and global challenges.
The campus’s flagship 38,000 sq m academic building, which will house 4,600 students and 650 staff, has been built on the site of the former Royal Mail sorting office, next to Temple Meads station.
It will be home to world-class teaching and research across business, innovation, digital engineering, artificial intelligence, quantum and more.
More than just a physical space, according to the university, it will usher in a transformative, interdisciplinary approach to innovation by helping start-ups, scale-ups and corporations gain access to the world-class research expertise and entrepreneurial talent from all faculties at the university.
It will house the Bristol Innovations Zone (BIZ), a dedicated space for around 300 enterprise partners, providing flexible co-working and event spaces, specialist labs, state-of-the-art equipment, skills training, support services and events.
It will also include the Bristol Rooms, a signature space for staff and students to work with partners of all kinds on shared challenges, and the Story Exchange, a round space for conversations between people with different backgrounds and forms of expertise.
These civic spaces will complement the university’s Barton Hill micro-campus, which celebrates its five-year anniversary in 2025, and the recently opened Hartcliffe and Withywood micro-campus, both of which are designed to make higher education accessible to all.
The new academic building will join the university’s Temple Quarter Research Hub at nearby Avon Street.
It houses the university’s Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI), which is pioneering transformative approaches to digital innovation, and MyWorld, the University of Bristol-led programme for creative technologies.
Since becoming fully operational in 2024, this new facility has welcomed industry partners such as Aardman and provided skills bootcamps in virtual production for local film and TV professionals funded by the West of England Combined Authority (WECA).
More than 450 people are currently working on the campus site, where 1,000 glass panels and 750 solar panels have been installed, with 25,000 sq m of walls having been plastered and more than 63,000 floor tiles installed so far. Outside, 130 trees are being planted.
University vice-chancellor and president Prof Evelyn Welch said: “Excitement is really building now as we enter the final 12-month journey before our fantastic new campus finally opens its doors.
“Since we signed contracts with developers Sir Robert McAlpine in April 2023, the new building has risen from the ground and is already looking amazing.
“Alongside cutting-edge multidisciplinary research, innovation, start-ups and entrepreneurship, and providing opportunities to work with students and develop talent pipelines, I am particularly proud that the new campus will be a hub for the local community.
“People of Bristol – we want you to come and join us. This is your university as much as it’s ours.”
Deputy vice-chancellor and lead for the Temple Quarter Programme, Prof Judith Squires, added: “We’ve reached a really important milestone today in the delivery of our new campus.
“It is the catalyst for an area of regeneration that will transform this previously neglected area of Bristol into a vibrant place for our local communities.
“The transformation both inside and outside of the main building is truly impressive, with the internal spaces really taking shape and the external landscaping beginning to reveal the future public realm.
“This time next year, we’ll be preparing to welcome the first people to our flagship building, so it is heartening to see the project continuing to develop on schedule and on budget.”
The university is working closely with a range of partners on the Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone, Bristol City Council, WECA, Network Rail and Homes England.
With a refurbished Bristol Temple Meads station at its heart, the area will become a world-class gateway to Bristol and the West of England.
A new eastern entrance to the station will open at the same time as the Enterprise Campus, giving direct access to the campus, as well as connecting the station to St Philip’s Marsh and east Bristol.
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