A blog by Midlands Innovation Assistant Director Joshua Hawkins, author of University Innovation in the Midlands: A New Era of Commercialisation.
There’s a compelling story beginning to take shape in the Midlands. It’s the story of a uniquely large collaboration between 16 universities, local government, industry and private capital: a mature research ecosystem coming together with renewed ambition to address long‑standing challenges around investment, scale and talent.
We set out to write University innovation in the Midlands: a new era of commercialisation to tell this story, but along the way discovered just how challenging it can be to distil such a vast and multi-faceted ecosystem (30,000 researchers, multiple universities, 74+ sites, and over £6bn in research funding secured in five years) into a clear narrative.
A baseline for flagship initiatives
Our report provides a baseline for the flagship initiatives driving this growth story in the region, including Forging Ahead and Midlands Mindforge. Forging Ahead is aligning talent, infrastructure and support programmes to create a stronger innovation pipeline. Midlands Mindforge, meanwhile, is tackling one of the Midlands’ biggest barriers to growth by building a new patient‑capital vehicle, and is now investing in companies. Together, these initiatives signal a step‑change in ambition and are poised to transform the region’s ability to turn ideas into high‑growth companies.
These initiatives sit within a broader landscape of support spanning the spinout founder’s journey. By describing the various support mechanisms and bringing together the available data underpinning our commercialisation efforts, the report paints a picture of a maturing ecosystem — one that is increasingly investable — in a way that informs potential investors whose capital is so critical to its success.
Why ecosystem analysis matters
There is a growing interest in understanding how innovation ecosystems drive economic growth, reflected in the Government’s Entrepreneurship strategy, Research England’s work to build on the new insights provided by the Spinout Register (including the funding of Forging Ahead through the aptly named ‘university commercialisation ecosystems’ Connecting Capabilities Funding call), and parallel efforts such as the University of Strathclyde developing their own report for Scotland.
This type of analysis helps to communicate a clear and comprehensive value proposition. It shows the full commercialisation pipeline along with the supporting infrastructure, including technology transfer offices, commercialisation teams, incubators, accelerators and the wider business environment. Presented together, these elements create a fuller picture that can influence an investment decision.
How we approached our analysis
To coordinate our analysis for the Midlands, we built our report around five principles:
- Work together: This report has been developed collaboratively, with regional Technology Transfer Offices, support programme leaders and investors feeding into it.
- Connect it to national and regional priorities: We framed the analysis in relation to the Industrial Strategy and wider government priorities and the stated ambitions outlined in regional growth plans. While our focus is on our university ecosystem, the triple helix of industry, state and academia cannot be ignored.
- Use reproducible, trackable and common metrics: from spinout rate per £100m research income to average round sizes and business growth rates, we utilised data from Dealroom, Data City, HESA and ONS to create a baseline – ensuring we can benchmark, but others can too.
- Provide tangible insights: We demonstrated the full pipeline by highlighting key research assets and capabilities through to actual spinouts (and what they do) offering historical evidence while signposting the future direction of travel.
- Open up: Midlands Innovation has sponsored the Midlands Ecosystem Platform – a free to use Dealroom product showcasing the region’s tech start ups, investors, universities, science parks and spinouts. This is an interactive tool allowing users to track our ecosystem’s progress, develop deal flow and evidence performance, acting as a shop front to potential investors, founders and other stakeholders.
Follow our Region’s evolution
The ecosystem report is available to download here, and you can explore the Midlands university spinout prospects and the wider innovation ecosystem with a free account on the Midlands Ecosystem Platform.
The Midlands’ innovation ecosystem is evolving rapidly. It is a dynamic environment shaped by new partnerships, emerging companies and shifting investment flows. Our report captures a moment in that evolution, providing a baseline from which future progress can be tracked.
As initiatives like Forging Ahead and Midlands Mindforge gather pace, the platform offers a way to follow the region’s progress in real time, from new spinouts to investment activity and ecosystem growth. The Midlands is building momentum, and tracking it now means seeing the next chapter unfold as it happens.
