This is evidenced through the University’s Enterprise Investment Fund (EIF), a significant annual fund which is dedicated to supporting entrepreneurial projects. Funding is available for staff to de-risk technologies developed at the University, ideally following validation via other internal Proof of Concept funds (e.g. UKRI Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) funding), and provide start-up investment to our spin-out companies.
Since 2018, the University has been part of a consortium of eight Universities in the Northern UK, called ‘North by NorthWest’, providing our academics with access to external accelerator programmes, such as the Innovate UK funded Innovation-to-Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) Discovery and Explore schemes.
To date, over 30 of our research teams have taken part, securing over £3m of external ICURe funding and contributing to the formation of nine spin-outs, including SenseAI, PhenUtest Diagnostics, Plasma2X Ltd and ReNewVax.
Srijan Jindal, ICURe alumnus and CSO, PhenUtest Diagnostics, said: “ICURe is a brilliant program designed very specifically to help young academics turn their research into commercialise products with high success rate. It helped us find the best management team to take this project forward. Innovate UK’s support has enabled PhenUtest to pursue the development of the fastest point-of-care diagnostics for Urinary Tract Infections.”
The Enterprise Team also offers in-house training including:
‘Future Founders’ - a pioneering programme designed by the University of Liverpool to provide ongoing professional development and bespoke coaching that can help researchers make the transition from the academic to the start-up environment.
Commercially Curious - for those unfamiliar with research commercialisation. A 6-week programme providing insight into how your IP can generate impact.
“With the tremendous support of the Enterprise Team and seed funding from Innovate UK and the Univeristy, we are in a position to take our vaccine research beyond the bench and into the real world. ReNewVax represents an opportunity for us to foster innovation and make a difference”.
Dr Marie Yang Co-founder of ReNewVax.
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