Accessibility statement

Commercialising research

Knowledge Transfer activities that enable the use of research beyond academia offer significant benefits to academic staff:

  • open up new collaborations, data sets and funding sources,
  • provide opportunities for impact
  • generate income
  • raises new areas of research activity
  • funders are more frequently requesting the engagement of collaborators

It is the University’s policy to encourage all employees to consider the commercial opportunities for any inventions that arise from their research. There are many ‘mechanisms’ which an academic can use to collaborate. 

The teams in Research and Enterprise will assist academics in choosing and undertaking the correct route to commercialising or exploiting their research. Professional support in commercialising Intellectual Property (IP) is available for all academics, comprising the Commercialisation team, the Research and Knowledge Exchange Contracts team, and the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) team. 

We're also a member of Northern Accelerator, a partnership of six universities aimed at driving innovation and job creation, which gives us access to training and funding opportunities for researchers considering commercialisation opportunities. To find out more, please contact the Commercialisation team.

Mechanisms

Considerations

Video summary

Watch a short overview from the Head of Commercialisation, James Kitson of the major types of commercialisation activity.

You may be interested to listen to Peter Harrington's Startup Survival podcast series designed to help and inspire startups, educators, coaches and students with ideas about any kind of venture.