Imperial has been named the Outstanding Entrepreneurial University of 2025 for its work on scaling innovation from West London to the world.
The prize at the 2025 Times Higher Education Awards in Edinburgh was given in recognition of Imperial's efforts to harness the university's innovation for global impact and expand opportunities for entrepreneurship in the UK and abroad.
Since its founding in 1907, Imperial has put innovation and entrepreneurship at the heart of its mission. The university's Science for Humanity strategy, launched in 2024, reaffirmed its commitment to empowering students and academics to translate scientific discoveries into solutions with real-world impact for global challenges.
"This award celebrates the thousands of students, researchers, and partners who make Imperial such an extraordinary home for innovation and entrepreneurship." Ben Mumby-Croft Director of Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London
Imperial's unique entrepreneurial ecosystem is key to this mission, through initiatives and facilities such as the Imperial Enterprise Lab, Advanced Hackspace, the Imperial Incubator and the climate innovation centre Undaunted. This world-leading ecosystem supports science-based entrepreneurs with taking their idea and turning them into startups, scaleups and - ultimately - global businesses.
In 2024, Imperial was named Europe's leading large university (£1bn+) for startup creation by the Redstone University Startup Index, and both the Imperial Enterprise Lab and Undaunted were ranked among Europe's top 60 startup hubs by the Financial Times.
Ben Mumby-Croft. Director of Entrepreneurship at Imperial, said: "This award celebrates the thousands of students, researchers, and partners who make Imperial such an extraordinary home for innovation and entrepreneurship. It also shows what our new institutional strategy Science for Humanity looks like in action — brilliant ideas becoming brilliant ventures, challenging the status quo and changing lives for good."
Global ambition
In 2024, Imperial launched the Imperial Global network which aims to scale inclusive innovation around the world, with strategically located hubs in the USA, Singapore, Ghana and India.
"This award reflects the dedication, creativity and hard work of our entire team in supporting founders to start and scale cleantech businesses that are building a sustainable future." Alyssa Gilbert Director of Undaunted
These hubs promote international collaboration and market access, and through them, the university has supported 30 student and academic founders to build relationships and explore new markets via the Venture Treks programme.
Meanwhile, Undaunted played a leading role in co-developing the Earthshot Climate Innovation Network last year – a coalition of 17 global accelerators aiming to scale 10,000 eco-innovations this decade.
Alyssa Gilbert, Director of Undaunted, said: "We are immensely proud to be recognised as the Times Higher Education Outstanding Entrepreneurial University. This award reflects the dedication, creativity and hard work of our entire team in supporting founders to start and scale cleantech businesses that are building a sustainable future. It's a testament to what we can achieve when we come together with a shared mission to drive meaningful impact."
Expanding access
Earlier this year, Imperial announced that it will lead the development of a new national network for women entrepreneurs, WE Innovate National, working with universities in all four nations of the UK.
Partnering with Queen's University Belfast, a WE Innovate pilot supported 50 teams this year, culminating in a £60,000 Grand Final which saw Imperial teams showcasing ideas for soil regeneration and innovative plaster designs to accelerate healing.
Imperial also launched the inaugural Commonwealth Startup Fellowship (CSF) in partnership with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and Commonwealth Scholarships Commission. From over 1,400 applicants, 20 founders from low- and middle-income countries joined a six-month programme, which included a bootcamp at Imperial Global Ghana and a London showcase.
Supporting breakthrough innovation
Alongside this work, Imperial remains a leader in technology transfer and academic entrepreneurship.
Recent success stories from the past year include:
- Myricx Bio, a cancer therapy spinout based on research carried out at Imperial and the Francis Crick Institute, raised £90m - one of the UK's largest Series A rounds.
- Imperial's flagship White City Incubator won the West London Business Award for Best Incubator and Co-working Space.
- Material design spinout Polaron won the first £1m Manchester Prize, a government-run competition support breakthroughs in artificial intelligence for the public good.
Imperial's Founders Choice equity model – the UK's most founder-friendly approach – also offers researchers flexibility while supporting long-term university partnership. The model is shaping best practice through the TenU network, which brings together world-leading universities in the UK and abroad. The TenU network includes the University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial, KU Leuven, University of Manchester, MIT, University of Oxford, Stanford University, and UCL.
