Science Creates Founder Harry Destecroix awarded MBE for decade of scientific impact

We mark the beginning of 2025 by announcing that Science Creates’ Founder Harry Destecroix has been awarded an MBE in the King’s 2025 New Year Honours List for his services to science.

This monumental achievement, which specifically recognises Harry for his pivotal role in founding and building the Science Creates ecosystem, is a fitting milestone as we celebrate a decade of Science Creates this year. 

Built by founders, for founders, Science Creates was established in 2015 to provide the unique tools, space and community needed for Deep Tech ventures to thrive and drive meaningful impact on human and planetary health. This still remains our mission to this day as we continue to grow our community of members, partners, investors and supporters – all striving towards this shared goal.

Reacting to the accolade, Harry said: “I am deeply humbled to be receiving this MBE in recognition of Science Creates. This honor is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of the talented team that has shaped Science Creates from its modest beginnings into the thriving community it is today.

“This recognition also acknowledges all the Deep Tech founders and companies who dare to challenge the status quo. They are at the core of what we do at Science Creates and deserve to be recognised for their critical role in driving innovation, strengthening the UK economy, and advancing human and planetary health – not just for today, but for the future.”

To celebrate both Harry’s achievement and the growth of the Science Creates ecosystem, we look back on the key milestones of the past decade.

Science Creates’ decade in Deep Tech:

In 2015, Unit DX (which would later become Science Creates) was founded as a solution to provide much-needed lab space in Bristol for Deep Tech spinouts with nowhere to go. 

In 2017, despite numerous fall-backs, the team managed to raise £3m in funding to lease a commercial unit in St Philips, which they converted into Science Creates’ first Deep Tech incubator.

By 2019, the St Philips labs were all fully occupied so a decision was made to build a second incubator, which was backed by a £1.5m grant from Research England. 

In 2020, Unit DX rebranded to Science Creates and the venture capital arm of the company, Science Creates Ventures (later renamed SCVC), was formed to invest in UK-wide, early-stage startups.

In 2021, Old Market officially opened as Science Creates’ second incubator with new event, social and meeting room spaces for members.

In 2022, as all lab spaces at Old Market reached capacity, we launched Science Creates Outreach – an independent charity based in The Learning Lab at our Old Market incubator – to deliver interactive STEM workshops to local young people.

In 2023, Science Creates delivered its first UK-wide Engineering Biology Accelerator, funded by UKRI and supporting 22 entrepreneurial scientists. 

We formalised our partnership with the University of Bristol and SCVC secured its first close, investing in a range of Deep Tech companies across the UK from pre-seed to seed.

To round off the year, we secured funding to deliver a second Engineering Biology Accelerator and £8.5m to build our third Bristol incubator, OMX, in partnership with the University of Bristol and Research England.

In 2024, we finalised the design, gained planning permission and opened expressions of interest for OMX. DSIT Science Minister, Lord Patrick Vallance, visited us at Old Market, and we delivered our second UK-wide Engineering Biology Accelerator, sparking the formation of 17 new startup companies across the two programmes.

We launched a first-in-class partnership with Thermo Fisher Scientific and Science Creates Outreach celebrated the milestone of empowering a total of over 3,000 learners through its STEM workshops.

SCVC gained two new Partners and Science Creates members collectively raised over £77 million in investment to drive forward their startups.

In 2025, we’ll shortly be starting construction on OMX in preparation for its opening late this year – plus many more exciting things to come, so watch this space!

Here’s to the next decade…