A new Durham-led project to strengthen collaboration between universities and businesses and others to drive growth and create jobs in North East England has received major funding from the UK Government.
The North East Strategic Commercialisation project, a five-year programme involving the region's five universities and other partners, has been awarded £8.9 million from Research England.
Strategic Commercialisation Ecosystem North East
Building on the foundations of the Northern Accelerator spin-out programme, the project will grow the North East's capacity and capability to commercialise impactful university research.
The initiative aims to further support the region's spinout businesses and also link-up collaborative research and development (R&D), licensing and other forms of commercial activity with business partners.
It's a very important next phase of work in realising the shared ambition of the region's universities to contribute to economic growth nationally and in the region.
The project will look to drive forward a sustained step-change in the commercialisation of research to deliver enhanced economic, social and environmental impact.
Through the funding, the project will engage more businesses, sector bodies, and investors in commercialising university research.
It comes as the five universities continue to build their collaboration through Universities for North East England (UNEE).
North East England's universities have a shared drive to ensure academic research benefits local communities, through creating new businesses and new and better jobs. The project will be a game-changer for research commercialisation, bringing in more businesses, more public sector bodies, and more academic researchers in finding innovative, profitable solutions to pressing challenges.
Regional commercialisation
Over the five-year programme, the project will deliver in seven areas focused on addressing specific opportunities and barriers to expanding the commercialisation of university research in North East England.
The first of its programmes will see dedicated resources, capacity and leadership to support deeper collaboration between the partner Higher Education Providers. It will deliver enhanced and more structured engagement with more businesses.
Over time the project will look to increase the pipeline of high-quality, investible spinouts in the region.
At the same time, it will seek to actively support the creation and promotion of intellectual property and build new commercial partnerships with businesses to strengthen innovation and investment.
Two aspects of the programme aim to support the growth and retention of existing spin-outs to deliver lasting economic, social, and environmental benefits in the region.
Working with an existing portfolio of 60 spin-out businesses, UK Government and investor partners to promote exporting and enhancing the investment finance available in the region.
A dedicated team working collaboratively across the universities will drive forward the programme towards establishing systems to sustain an enhanced regional commercialisation ecosystem into the future.
Supporting strategic development
Research England is investing £30 million into four ambitious regional projects through its University Commercialisation Ecosystem initiative.
The funding forms part of Research England's wider work to support research commercialisation across the country. It builds on the Connecting Capability Fund (CCF) and the Research England Development (RED) Fund, which aim to drive innovation by supporting collaboration and strengthening commercialisation capacity.
The UK is home to some of the world's best universities, and we have deep strengths from life sciences to cutting-edge fields like quantum and engineering biology. But we can and must do more to unlock scientific research's vast economic potential, and to help our innovators world-leading public sector labs turn brilliant ideas into businesses that attract investment and sustain jobs. The funding and guidance we are announcing today will reinforce those efforts – supporting our mission to grow the economy as part of the Plan for Change.
A strong, supportive eco-system can be critical to the success of businesses and commercial activity. A key objective of the project will look to further increase the support to the pipeline of high-quality, investible spinouts in our region, including drawing in new long term sources of investment to the North East and providing support for growth and exporting. At the same time, it will seek to actively support the creation and promotion of intellectual property in our institutions and build new commercial partnerships with businesses and innovation partners to strengthen regional innovation and investment.
