The Faculty of Engineering’s Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation team is a ‘Team of the Year’ finalist in the Knowledge Exchange (KE) awards.

The awards, sponsored by UKRI and organised by PraxisAuril, ‘celebrate the people who help to initiate and deliver impact and outcomes from publicly funded research through a diverse range of partners and activities’. PraxisAuril is the UK’s world-leading professional association for Knowledge Exchange practitioners.

The Engineering team submission highlighted how the diverse team were able to manage strategic partnerships with industry and facilitate commercialisation of Imperial’s technologies throughout the pandemic. Some of the initiatives led by the team and implemented by working with Faculty leadership include developing a new partnerships policy and embedding ‘Enterprise Academic Champions’ in all departments to ensure that academics are supported to develop their ideas commercially or work more closely with industry. The team also set up a pro-bono network of industry experts and entrepreneurs to support Imperial academics.

In the last year the team, working with colleagues in the Faculty team and the wider Enterprise Division, has signed more than 75 collaborations with industry and over 25 commercialisation agreements, filed 30 GB priorities and licensed IP to, and supported the formation of, 12 Engineering startups. This year the team are enabling a route to market for some of Imperial’s discoveries to fight the pandemic such as a novel microfluidics COVID-19 test by startup Proton DX and a new ventilator design, initially licensed for free to over on hundred manufacturing outfits and now commercialising via Engineering’s startup Phaedrus.

Working closely with Research Contracts the team also facilitated partnerships with global firms including Facebook, Leica and Rolls Royce but also small and medium size businesses such as Common Seas, Motif FoodWorks and Ultromics.

Professor Mary Ryan, Interim Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) said: “The team is an integral part of our research ecosystem – enabling our academics to deliver real-world translational impact. They are deeply connected with the research and translation mission of the Faculty and combine this with an understanding of the needs and interests of industry partners, and to-do attitude to adapt to new challenges and devise creative solutions to continue to provide their service. Their ethos of partnership-building has led to sustained industrial research funding across all departments. The team also support translation of our research via intellectual property management and have worked with our academics on a number of commercialisation deals taking Imperial’s innovative technologies to market”.

In addition Imperial’s Enterprise team has been shortlisted as a finalist jointly with UCL Business and the University of Cambridge in the Deal of the Year Category for Apollo Therapeutics, which has attracted major investment to empower a unique, multi-university portfolio-based biopharmaceuticals venture.

Read about the other finalists. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on Thursday 18 November.