Enabling

Innovation:

Research to

Application

4 September 2018

Vanessa Cuthill

STRUCTURE

Setting the context

• University of Essex

• Regional collaboration - EARC

• UK Industrial Strategy and CCF

The ‘EIRA’ project

• Aims

• Ways of working with business

• KPIs

• Implementation and challenges

Reflections

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

University

of Essex

UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX - FACTS

Over 14,000 students and growing – plan to grow to

20,000 in the next few years

Over 2,500 employees and 4,500 graduates every

year

Top 20 in the UK for research excellence

Contribute more than £0.5 billion to the UK

economy

Top university in London and the SE England for

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships scheme. Top 5 in

the UK with 25 live projects

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

KNOWLEDGE

TRANSFER PARTNERSHIPS

Signal is a tech start-up based on innovation developed in collaboration with the

University of Essex.

The collaboration used AI to provide a media monitoring service. The associate

won ‘Business Leader of Tomorrow and the project was awarded ‘Best of the

Best’ KTP award in 2015.

Within a year, Signal’s revenue exceeded £250k and grow has been

exponential with a series B investment off £16 million just closed.

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

HOW WE WORK WITH BUSINESS

EXPERTISE - Our research community helps businesses innovate

Support is delivered as continuing professional development, consultancy,

contract research, vouchers, or through Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer

Partnership scheme.

TALENT - Through student employability Encouraging businesses to employ our talented, fresh-thinking students and

graduates as interns or on placements. We run a start-up and a Gameshub

programme.

SPACE AND RESOURCES - Access to our specialist facilities

Our Language Interpreting Lab and EssexLab, our new STEM building, and the

Knowledge Gateway including our new Digital Creative suite in the new

Innovation Centre..

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

The centre will have the space and

hands-on support for 50-plus

businesses to start up, scale up, and

succeed. It will house a digital and

creative studio.

It was awarded £2m funding by

SELEP in February 2017 and support

by Essex County Council.

The Essex Economic Commission

2017 report highlighted the mismatch

between the supply of, and demand

for, grow-on space across Essex

THE INNOVATION CENTRE

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

Eastern

Academic

Research

Consortium

(EARC)

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

EARC is a strategic collaboration between the regional universities of East Anglia, Essex, and Kent launched September 2013

With a combined turnover of £540 million, together the three universities teach and train more than 50,000 students, supported by around 2,000 academic staff

Eastern ARC represents a significant investment in staff and PhD students

By acting collaboratively, the EARC responds creatively and effectively to key drivers that are changing the landscape of research in UK higher education

The initial focus is on three broad interdisciplinary areas, with each university acting as academic lead in one of the areas:

• Digital Humanities, led by the University of Kent

• Quantitative Social Science, led by the University of Essex

• Synthetic Biology, led by the University of East Anglia

THE EASTERN ARC (EARC)

EARC - FACTS

From 2015, appointed 21 PhD students, 9 Fellows,

and 9 academic leads across the 3 universities

In 16/17 alone, the EARC:

• submitted 16 grant application; secured

more than £1.5 million funds

• More than 33 conference presentations

• Published more than 54 journal

publications, book chapters and

monographs

EARC events to engage with funding opportunities

(e.g. GCRF)

Theme events to grow research collaborations e.g.

the Synthetic Biology summer school and Disaster

Heritage sandpit in 2018

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

UK NATIONAL CONTEXT

Industrial Strategy

“…increasing research and development

investment by £4.7 billion in total, an

extra £2 billion per year by 2020-21.

“…creating a new Industrial Strategy

Challenge Fund to help the UK

capitalise on its strengths in science and

innovation…….”

CONNECTING CAPABILITIES FUND (CCF)

New funding scheme by Research England funded through the UK Industrial

Strategy

Scheme announced in the late spring 2017 with a deadline in the summer 2017

and autumn 2017

£85 million available for competitive projects with limits to number and value of

applications, and all awards to start in April 2018 for 3 years

To support university collaboration in research commercialisation;

• to share good practice and capacity internally across the higher

education sector;

• to forge external technological, industrial and regional partnerships

Research England have funded

18 CCF projects

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

Our Project:

“Enabling Innovation:

Research to Application”

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

EIRA – CHALLENGE

Eastern England has lower than average:

• Productivity

• Growth

• Scale-up rates

Evidence from the Essex Economic Commission report 2017 on Greater Essex

• 8th largest economy in UK

• Has slower growth rate (0.6%) than the UK average 2004-2014 (1.3%)

• Higher than UK average number of start-ups & 43% survival rate, but

not fed growth

• Productivity levels well below some SE counties (GVA of £52.3k, UK

£53.3, Berks £70k)

To tackle this:

• Focus on innovation of key clusters

• Develop supply chains within these clusters

• Support early stage businesses

£4.7m of funding from Research England

(Connecting Capability Fund) plus £1.6m leverage

Three years from April 2018 to March 2021

Built on the established EARC regional consortium, led by Essex

EIRA extends the consortium to 7 regional HE providers by including:

• Harlow College

• Norwich University of the Arts

• University of Suffolk

• Writtle University College

Partners:

SELEP & NALEP; TechEast & AgriTech East; Digital Catapult; and BT Group

EIRA – KEY FACTS

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

To stimulate economic activity in

eastern England in three priority

themes by:

Focused interventions for

individual businesses

Funded EIRA staff to support

collaboration with business and

between partners

Build research & innovation activity

and collaboration across the EIRA

network:

• Collaboration between network

• Development of EIRA case

studies and collection of good

practice

• Training programme for KE

capacity building

EIRA – TWIN AIMS

Three priority themes:

Artificial Intelligence; Biotech; Digital Creative

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

Geographic eligibility - Actions which will benefit eastern England, defined as the

region covered by SELEP & NALEP plus Cambridge & Peterborough

Biotech - Biotechnological innovation is defined by Biotech Innovation Organisation:

• Heal the world: next generation treatments and cures

• Fuel the world: cutting greenhouse gas emissions and reducing reliance on foreign oil

• Feed the world: feeding a growing population, generating higher crop yields with

fewer resources

Digital Creative – as defined by DCMS: Those industries which have their origin in

individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation

through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property

Artificial Intelligence - an area of computing that enables machines to learn and make

decisions like humans.

Using AI helps automate processes, perform tasks that would otherwise require human

intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, and language translation.

AI is not static, it learns and adapts as it gathers insights. AI automates routine processes

EIRA – DEFINITIONS

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

8 types of “Intervention”

• R&D: Innovation Vouchers up to £5k (n=80); R&D Grants up to £50k (n=20); Hot House events (n=12)

• Earlier stage research: Proof of Concept grants up to £40k (n=25)

• Start-up support: Start-up microfinance up to £3k (n=55)

• Skills development: i-teams(n=9); Gameshub(n=6); Innovation internships(n=80)

Some limitations

• Can be limited by location (limited number of i-teams and Gameshubs, each of which must be delivered at a single location)

• Start-up micro finance and R&D Grants projects must be led by Eastern ARC members, but all can collaborate.

• Must be with SMEs as defined in accordance with the European Union rules (staff headcount and either turnover or balance sheet total for individual firms)

• Innovation Vouchers, R&D Grants and Innovation internships require match funding

EIRA – WAYS OF WORKING WITH BUSINESS

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

KPIs 1, 2 and 3

Governance – to establish a Steering Group and Network meetings; confirm commitments of all partners

Resourcing - to recruit dedicated staff : Core directorate (3);

KE Fellows (9);

KE Managers (3);

Project Support (3)

Finances – record leverage staff time & facilities; establishing financial systems and reporting

Capability – mechanisms to share expertise and best practice; information sharing (internally & externally)

Challenges

Mechanisms to engage with non-EARC partners – e.g. rolling attendance at steering groups; MoUs.

Agree common understanding of roles; recruitment timelines vary; to date 12 out of 18 posts filled.

Limited resources at non-EARC partners

Different approaches to invoicing, delays in starting

Sharing documents; procurement of website, branding

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

EIRA – IMPLEMENTATION

KPIs 4, 5 and 6

Interventions – need to scope, agree,

launch, advertise, review and invest funds

Outputs – need an approach to recording

and monitoring activity (funded and

leveraged)

Impacts – need to record value added by

the EIRA award

Challenges

Agree common understanding for each

intervention, approach to match funds, and

an allocation / review process.

New approaches for collaborative projects

Differing institutional policies (e.g. IPR and

ethics)

Limited resources at non-EARC partners for

administration and monitoring

Identify an approach, undertake a baseline

assessment, and agree ways to capture

value added (N and £)

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

EIRA – IMPLEMENTATION (2)

Changing landscape

• Consortium funding is the future

• Impact and KE will remain central features of the landscape

• Shorter lead in time to respond to funding opportunities is more common

• Agility is key

Partnerships

• Building on established relationships (with businesses and HE) aids success

• Need to understand motivations and drivers of all parties involved

• Need new levels of commitment and time to take partnerships to a new level

REFLECTIONS

Fresh

thinking,

to help

business

flourish

Succeeding

• Understand institutional differences as soon as possible

• Plan for delays (especially recruiting)

• Leverage existing relationships to ensure a pipeline of

activities and quick wins

• Expect to be flexible – and learn lessons quickly

Thank you Vanessa Cuthill

Director of Research &

Enterprise Office

University of Essex

vanessa.cuthill@essex.ac.uk