In this spring edition of her Director’s Diary, Dr Helen Turner shares her reflections on the first quarter of 2026, which has focused on the commercialisation of research.
Against a backdrop of research funding being refocused and channelled through buckets, a narrative nationally of backing entrepreneurs that have the greatest potential of producing business ‘winners’, and supporting entrepreneurs, including academic entrepreneurs, for longer in their entrepreneurial journeys, the start of 2026 has certainly felt like there has been a ramping up of focus on the commercialisation of research. Whilst the talk around funding is unsettling, I am pleased that action we have taken as a partnership, including establishing the landmark Forging Ahead scheme, means we have a potential jump on the changes that are being rung in.
I was delighted to attend the report launch of Tony Hickson’s review into Deepening University Investor Links, the review underlines that universities are engines of future growth — with strong spin-out pipelines that are disproportionally performing well in terms of the top 20 best performing start-ups being spinouts.
Hickson stressed that the higher education sector needs to get creative to attract mansion house funding into spinouts, and beyond access to capital, the ecosystem also needs the right talent and infrastructure – which is exactly what our Forging Ahead initiative, established by Midlands Innovation partners, is designed to address. I am delighted that Tony Hickson highlighted both Forging Ahead and Midlands Mindforge as exemplars in his report.
One of the elements Hickson highlighted from the report at the launch is that there are gaps in the financing system particularly at proof-of-concept stage. We welcome the recommendation to expand funding for proof-of-concept and Hickson stresses that this should not be through repurposing of the existing R&D budget.
I’ve also had the pleasure of attending the Barclays Innovation Hub powered by Eagle Labs Spinout Symposium. There was a keynote speech on the rise of the venture scientist, and the training and infrastructure of technology transfer offices who help academics to turn research into technologies that are having real-world impact.
There was also a panel discussion, chaired by Simon Hepworth, Director of Knowledge Exchange at Research England, which explored the point at which a spinout takes its product to market. investment readiness, and the importance of incubation. It was great to hear Barclays representatives highlighting Forging Ahead as part of the discussion.
Myself and Dr Lisa Smith, CEO of Midlands Mindforge, both spoke at the West Midlands events of the ClimbUK tour. Climb is the UK’s Business Growth Festival, and prior to its national event in July, it is touring the country hosting regional events. Lisa spoke at the Birmingham event, and I spoke at the event in Warwick.
I used my speech to discuss the power of connecting all the Midlands universities to collaborate to help drive growth, which we are doing informally and also more formally through a number of initiatives such as Forging Ahead, and the Invest in UK Universities: Midlands Campaign – a national pilot seeing 17 universities working collectively to attract greater levels of overseas investment. I am a strong believer in collaboration, and that’s why I believe the Government highlighted Midlands Innovation in its Post-16 white paper as an exemplar of the types of collaboration in the sector that it wants to see more of.
The ClimbUK tour continues its trail through the Midlands, with its next event taking place in Nottingham in mid-April, and I know the Forging Ahead Team are looking forward to supporting the main UK wide event – Climb26 – in July.
One of the key components that Forging Ahead funding is helping to deliver, is taking proven programmes that have been developed in one part of the region to support entrepreneurs through the various stages of their entrepreneurial journey, and scaling these out across the pan-region, giving more academics access to programmes which can help turn their research into scalable spinout propositions. One such programme is SPARK The Midlands, the global pre-clinical accelerator programme of Stanford University’s SPARK programme.
SPARK is coordinated and led in the UK by the commercialisation team at Aston University, from where it has been available for academics in the West Midlands. Through Forging Ahead, SPARK The Midlands has now officially launched in the East Midlands, giving access to more researchers to this world-class programme.
The launch, at the University of Nottingham, brought together academia, industry, investors, NHS, and key representatives from the ecosystem who all aim to drive forward novel medical innovations into real world clinical use. Read more about the launch here
I have also had the pleasure of meeting with the Earthscale team and to present the work Midlands Innovation is leading to mature the Midlands commercialisation ecosystem. Earthscale is a national programme helping to turn science and discovery into green jobs. It supports IP-rich climate tech ventures to scale, navigate manufacturing and raise Series A funding. Cranfield University and University of Nottingham are part of the programme, which is co-funded by Research England.
I am keen to make sure Midlands businesses and universities benefit from the programme. The scheme is currently recruiting with a deadline of 13th April 2026.
For more information or to apply, visit: https://earthscale.co.uk/home/apply-for-earthscale/
