Through my EFEC work facilitating UK-China collaboration, I have seen a recurring problem. International partners can have access to UK life sciences resources: introductions, events, networks, organisations willing to help and information that can be found with enough effort. The opportunity may be there. The goodwill may be there. Yet relatively little turns into meaningful engagement.
What has surprised me is how quickly access can become overwhelming. More information does not always create a clearer route.
The difficulty was knowing where to start.
Every conversation seemed to open three more doors. Every door appeared potentially useful. The challenge was not access to information, but judging which path was relevant.
I remember one conversation where two organisations were clearly interested in working together, yet neither side had enough context to know whether the opportunity was genuinely relevant. The meeting was productive, but it also showed how much interpretation had to happen before collaboration became possible.
That experience made me realise that access is not the same as navigation.
From inside an ecosystem, the routes can appear obvious. From outside, they often do not. Even people who have worked within a system for years may still be uncertain about who to approach, which opportunity is relevant, or how to move from a first conversation to something concrete.
This is not because UK life sciences ecosystems lack assets. Many regions have strong research, clinical expertise, specialist facilities, companies, investors, accelerators and support programmes. Those assets matter. Without them, there is little to build on.
But assets do not use themselves. They need to be understood, interpreted and connected to real needs.
The difficulty often appears at the point where someone tries to enter a system they do not yet understand. A company may know there is relevant academic expertise in Cambridge or another UK region, but not know which team to approach. A researcher may see commercial potential, but not know which partner is suitable for the stage of the work. An international organisation may recognise the strength of a UK ecosystem, but still feel unsure how to engage without wasting time or creating a superficial conversation.
I used to describe this, half jokingly and half in frustration, as "net, but not working."
The network exists. The people are present. The introductions happen. Yet the pathway remains unclear.
That is not a criticism of networking itself. Introductions matter. Events matter. Visibility matters. But if an introduction is made before the opportunity has been qualified, it can consume trust rather than build it.
Qualification is not gatekeeping. At its best, it protects the time, attention and confidence of everyone involved. It asks: why should these people speak to each other now? What does each side understand already? What is still unclear? What would make the conversation useful rather than merely polite?
Over time I realised that these conversations often involved three different challenges.
First, helping people discover what exists.
Second, helping them judge what is relevant.
Third, helping different organisations move forward when their priorities, timelines and assumptions are not naturally aligned.
I have seen this repeatedly when working between China and the UK, and also between different UK regions. Before making a useful connection, I often need to understand how each side sees the opportunity: how they define value, what evidence they need, how decisions are made, what risks they are trying to avoid and what kind of next step would feel realistic.
Without that work, a connection can look successful on paper while producing very little in practice. There may be a meeting, a follow-up email and a polite expression of interest, but no shared route forward.
This matters because life sciences collaboration often depends on organisations that do not naturally move in the same way. Universities, NHS organisations, companies, investors, regional bodies and international partners each have their own responsibilities, pressures and timelines. Strong institutions can sit alongside one another without becoming a strong system.
For EFEC, this is the thinking behind a model of structured connectivity, qualified navigation and cross-sector coordination. The model is still developing through practice, but the principle is clear: trust should not be treated as a soft outcome that appears after enough activity. It can be supported intentionally by doing more of the work before connection.
That means asking different questions from the ones ecosystems usually start with. Not only: what assets do we have? But also: who is trying to access them, from what starting point, and with what level of understanding? Who is helping them interpret the system? Who is qualifying opportunities before asking people to invest time? Who is responsible for turning a first conversation into a possible next step?
These are operational questions, but they are also strategic. They reveal whether an ecosystem is genuinely usable, especially to those outside its familiar circles.
The lesson I took from that experience was not that access is unimportant. Access matters.
But access only becomes useful when people know where they are, what matters, and who can help them move forward.
In other words, access is not navigation.
Author bio
Lily Lin is CEO of Excellence First Enterprise Consultancy (EFEC), a UK-based organisation working across capability development, ecosystem engagement and international collaboration in life sciences.
Disclaimer
The observations presented reflect EFEC's experience and engagement across life sciences ecosystems. They are offered as contextual reflections for UK stakeholders and do not constitute recommendations, directives or endorsements of specific organisations, programmes or models. Readers are encouraged to apply independent judgement appropriate to their own circumstances.
Image caption: The challenge is rarely finding an ecosystem. It is finding a route through it.
