Following on from the hugely successful visit from ParkWalk fund for the Enterprise Roadshow in January, this month the Research Commercialisation Team hosted the ESRC/AHRC SHAPE Catalyst. The Enterprise Roadshow Seminar series brings commercialisation partners to the University of Bristol to meet with Academics who are engaged in translational research.
The Catalyst programme, called ARC, helps researchers build innovative and sustainable ventures that deliver impact at scale. Their four-stage ARC Pathway is focused on the challenges and opportunities at each stage of an academics’ impact at scale journey.
The event was introduced by Prof Esther Dermott, Faculty Pro Vice-Chancellor of Arts, Law and Social Sciences who explained that we have had a number of spinouts and social enterprises created from University of Bristol research in the past year with another 10 on the horizon and a pipeline of over 100 projects looking to create sustainable impact for their projects, be that through licenses or setting up new companies.
Robin Halpenny, Arts, Law and Social Sciences Commercialisation Manager then interviewed Dr Lucy McCarthy, Co-founder of Circ Agri Hub, a project that seeks to connect actors across agricultural supply chains, share knowledge and support the implementation of circular agricultural practices such as waste valorisation. Lucy shared her experiences of going through the ARC accelerator programme, what she would recommend for someone at the start of their journey and what commercialisation means to her which was mostly around creating a social enterprise that could cover its own costs and get value back to the small and medium farmers in order to make the UK food system more resilient.
Lucy did a video for us to talk about her journey through the ARC programmes and how we’ve worked together.
SEE LUCY McCARTHY VIDEO HERE
We then heard from James Woodhams from the Catalyst programme about the 4 stages of Discover, Launch, Accelerate and Scale and that commercialisation is really about realisation and getting your research being used in society.
Dave Jarman, Associate Professor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at University of Bristol and Freelance Innovation educator then took us through a combined Discover I & II session where we heard about audiences, empathy and context for research outputs and had a go at filling out an audiences map. More resources from the session can be found here.
After this, Dave led a panel session featuring Professor Roberta Guerrina, SPAIS (first social sciences spinout founder of Equal In-sight. Did ARC Accelerate programme in 2022), Dr Joanna Burch-Brown, Philosophy (Founder of Bridging Histories CIC and just starting on ARC Accelerate programme) and Robert Sharples, Education (setting up EaL co-pilot, tested in consultancy, and just starting on ARC Accelerate programme). They spoke about things they learnt from doing ARC Launch/Accelerate and interesting thing about this process.
Their takeaway messages were to build in joy, just do it and don’t be afraid to make mistakes and learn from them – brilliant inspiration for anyone looking to embark on this work.
The event was finished off with Robin Halpenny updating on support from himself and Lorraine Fairbanks, Translational Hub Manager, for academics and included Aspect training courses, upcoming funding opportunities and to just reach out to one of us for a chat if you want get a breadth of impact from your research.
Lunch after the session allowed academics, members of the commercialisation and impact teams and the Catalyst to network, creating a relaxed atmosphere for a vibrant Q&A session after the event.
For the next Enterprise Roadshow Event, the Research Commercialisation Team brings Syngenta to the University of Bristol on 18 April 2024. Syngenta is looking to engage academics working in diverse fields including, but not limited to, chemistry, bio materials, plant science, protein biology and microbiology with the Syngenta team to help tackle agricultures most complex challenges. To learn more about this opportunity and if you would like to join us for the networking event, please contact RED-innovation@bristol.ac.uk