Two more universities are to help deliver the Innovation to Commercialisation University Research (ICURe) pilot programme, which was created at the University of Southampton.
Warwick University and Queen’s University Belfast are joining the ICURe programme thanks to an £8m funding boost announced by Business Secretary Greg Clark.
ICURe is a collaboration between the SETsquared Partnership, Innovate UK, and the Department for
Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. It offers university researchers with innovative ideas up to £35,000 to ‘get out of the lab’ and validate their ideas in the marketplace.
The programme was set up in 2014 and has been developed and led in Southampton. In the last four years, it has engaged 160 university research teams, which have generated more than 11,000 business links around the world and created 120 jobs in 44 new companies.
Wireless communications companies Accelercomm and Trimunocor, which research neonatal lung disease, are two ICURe spinouts from Southampton.
The funding will increase the number of research teams supported to 48 in 2018/19.
Don Spalinger, Chairman of the SETsquared Partnership and Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University, said:
“SETsquared created ICURe to overcome some of the barriers of getting the outputs from the UK’s world class universities’ research labs into the commercial marketplace. ICURe’s results from its first three years of operation go beyond our expectations.
“ICURe’s national rollout will enable even more research teams at more universities to take advantage of its proven capabilities.”
