The new home of Essex Business School has been shortlisted in two categories of the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Awards 2016 for the East of England.

The awards aim to showcase the most inspirational initiatives and developments in the UK with the new Essex Business School building on the Knowledge Gateway at the Colchester Campus shortlisted in the commercial property and design through innovation categories.

The regional award winners will be announced on 11 May at a special ceremony hosted by The Apex in Bury St Edmunds with each category winner going forward to the national final later in the year.

The designs for the new building were created by BDP to reflect Essex Business School’s ethos of sustainability in educating the business leaders of tomorrow and the construction project was overseen by Morgan Sindall.

A stunning winter garden with Eden Project-like domed roof is at the heart of the site creating its own micro-climate. More than one tonne of carbon is saved per day through the building’s energy efficient design and the use of low carbon technologies.

State-of-the-art facilities include a virtual Bloomberg trading floor and innovation booths for group-working plus dedicated working space for postgraduate and research students.

Essex Business School is one of the top 25 business schools in the country for the quality of its research, with two-thirds of its research rated as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. More than 1,700 students are studying at the Business School from more than 130 countries – including around 300 postgraduates.

The new building is a flagship building on the Knowledge Gateway which is being developed to become the location of choice in the eastern region for knowledge-based enterprises in science, technology and the creative sector.

Parkside Office Village, just across from the new building, is already providing a home to close to 20 businesses with new phases under development due to the level of demand. At the same time a £10 million Innovation Centre, accommodating up to 52 new start-ups companies, has also just received planning approval.