Project details

Cardiff University is an ambitious and innovative university with a bold strategic vision, built on a foundation of excellent teaching and research across a broad set of disciplines. The university wanted to create a facility that brings thinkers and makers together to ignite ideas and turn research into spinouts, start-ups, social enterprises, products and partnerships.

As the £300 million campus took shape across three major buildings including Sbarc | Spark and the Translational Research Hub, the project faced mounting pressure. With design and construction already 70% complete, rising cost and time challenges, and the sudden loss of the project lead due to ill health, morale was low and confidence across the project declined.

Recognising the risk to this investment, Cardiff University turned to the team at H4P and appointed Jan Ponsford to take the lead through the project at the most critical final stage.

Jan quickly built trust across the stakeholders, aligned the delivery teams around the shared goal and introduced greater discipline and control across change, cost and risk. The project moved from a position of pressure to one with control and delivery.

Within 18 months, the Innovation Campus was successfully completed and brought into operation, delivering three high-quality, purpose build environments for research, innovation and enterprise.

The campus is now thriving, home to world-leading research facilities and a growing community of start-ups and partners. What began as a high-risk delivery challenge became a perfect example of how experienced project management and leadership can unlock successful outcomes for high-value projects.

I feel so proud to have worked with such inspiring people, to have played a part in making their dream a reality and to see it thriving.

Jan Ponsford H4P – Programme Director