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Good practice Imported

Digital Greenhouse: Guernsey's State-Funded Innovation Hub, Its 2024 Reach and Its 2026 Closure Review

Guernsey · St Peter Port · See the Guernsey profile · See the St Peter Port profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 89% 48/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Guernsey's States-funded Digital Greenhouse reported 250+ entrepreneurs supported and 1,000+ event attendees in 2024, plus an AI course delivered with UCL — but an August 2026 States review found it had 'largely become a co-working space' and proposed closing it over its GBP 450,

1,000+
Event attendees (2024)
250+
Entrepreneurs worked with (2024)
450,000 GBP
Annual cost to States of Guernsey (2026)
Digital Greenhouse: Guernsey's State-Funded Innovation Hub, Its 2024 Reach and Its 2026 Closure Review

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
States of Guernsey / Digital Greenhouse
Period
2016-2026
Keywords
innovation hub, digital economy, entrepreneurship, skills training

Context

Guernsey's Digital Greenhouse was set up in 2016 by the States of Guernsey as a focal point for the island's digital and creative sectors, offering free co-working space, mentoring and accelerator-style programmes.

Activities

Its Discover Digital Internship Programme and Digital Innovators Programme (with UCL Computer Science) gave students exposure to digital careers and AI training.

Results

By its 2024 activity reporting, the hub hosted over 1,000 event attendees, worked with more than 250 entrepreneurs, and trained 67+ leaders on AI, but an August 2026 government review found it cost roughly GBP 450,000 a year (about GBP 10,000 per desk) and had 'largely become a co-working space.'

Conclusions

The case illustrates both a decade of measurable community reach and a government's own honest finding that reach had not translated into the deeper company-building outcomes the hub was funded to produce.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
hub management team, mentors

Conditions for success

  • links to financial-services sector and angel-investor connections (flagged as currently lacking)

Common failure modes

  • 2026 review found it had largely become a co-working space rather than a true incubator
  • GBP 10,000/desk annual cost flagged in the review

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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