A BioHub’s twenty-year concept note for its region: what the place knows needs doing, stated from the Place Knowledge Brief, with no request for money. The first output of the Place Mandate Template.
Extended definition
The Place Mandate is five to ten pages in a formal register. It states a goal tied to a date at least twenty years away that gives the place’s future its meaning, summarizes what the place knows, sets out the work in strands (noting where one piece of ground serves several strands), describes the shared support layer and how its functions pass to local bodies, names what is held and who decides, and states what the place does anyway.
It is the document a BioHub sends first when it moves from the needy to the needed posture. It asks no one for money. Outside parties read it to understand the work; the Terms of Engagement tell them how they may join.
Contrast with adjacent instruments
A grant proposal is written to a funder’s program and changes with each program. A strategic plan is often written for or by an institution with its own mandate. The Place Mandate is written from the Place Knowledge Brief, ratified by the place’s own authorities, and revised only through the place’s own process. The Identity Statement says who the BioHub is; the Place Mandate says what the place will do over a generation.
Structural elements
- The goal
- What the place knows
- The work, by strand, with overlaps
- The shared support layer and its handover
- What is held
- Who decides
- What the place does anyway
Related terms
Sources
- Place Mandate Template (source document Place_Mandate_Template_v0_1.md)
Provenance
Written 30 September 2026 alongside the Place Mandate Template, which introduces the term. No editorial decisions beyond the standard voice conversions.