In her first Director’s Diary blog of 2026, Dr Helen Turner shares her ambitions, highlights and events to note.
As we embrace the opportunities that a new year presents, I am looking forward to the year ahead. At the recent UKRI Growth Summit, the Secretary of State for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and new CEO of UKRI threw down the challenge to turn innovation into impact and ambition into action. In 2026, our aim is to do just that – to turn the significant investment we secured in 2025 into impact; upskilling our region’s excellent research community to embrace the opportunities that AI presents to supercharge research, and galvanising our commercialisation ecosystem so that our amazing spinouts can start, scale, and stay in the Midlands.
2025 was a challenging year for the higher education sector, but despite this, as a partnership of universities we were able to secure significant national investment and Midlands Innovation was recognised as an exemplar of collaboration in the higher education sector, that the Government wants to see more of.
With ambition to deliver at scale, in 2025 we were awarded funding to be able to significantly scale-up the commercialisation of research in the Midlands. Involving 15 universities across the whole the Midlands, we secured nearly 1/3 of the total Connecting Capabilities Fund awarded nationally for Forging Ahead. This year, in its first full year of operation, Forging Ahead will ‘forge ahead’ as it transitions from laying the foundations of the project to deliver impact.
It has the funds to scale tried and tested accelerator programmes across the Midlands so that these can benefit more researchers with entrepreneurial aspirations to turn their research into commercial products, services and businesses, driving a real step change in skills.
I am particularly excited to see our peer-to-peer learning programme get underway which will enable the region’s technology transfer professionals to come together to develop their skills and practice. Forging Ahead will lead the development of a Midlands’ talent pool by attracting external commercial expertise to become commercial champions to help spinout teams who can share expertise, mentor the spinouts in our region to enrich their leadership teams and supporting their growth. By pooling experience and talent through a network, we’re creating the conditions for growth and building a stronger innovation ecosystem for the Midlands.
To Keep up to date with Forging Ahead follow the team on LinkedIn, visit their new website or get in touch with the team by emailing forging.ahead@mailbox.lboro.ac.uk
I am looking forward to us publishing a new report on university innovation: a new era of commercialisation. It will quantify and map our research footprint, alignment to the industrial strategy, and the commercialisation journey from idea to successful business in the Midlands. The Midlands Ecosystem Platform, which we recently launched, will be used increasingly to highlight different activity and opportunities across the region’s start up community, science parks, universities and investors – with deep dives in the works around key sectors
After successfully securing funding from Research England for the AI.RDN+ (AI Researcher Development Network) in 2025, the project will this year commence delivery following an official launch at Aston University this month.
AI RDN+ sees 20 universities, across the Midlands Innovation and Yorkshire Universities partnerships, collaborating to build national capacity in AI skills for PhD researchers. In the spring, as part of series of roundtables MI is hosting to mark ten years of collaboration, we will bring together senior voices from academia, policy, and innovation to convene a roundtable discussion that will inform the direction of the AI Researcher Development Network (AI.RDN+). We aspire to ensure that the project outputs can help guide the higher education sector in the safe and ethical integration of generative AI tools during doctoral study.
Midlands Mindforge, established as an investment vehicle by Midlands Innovation partners, is moving to deploy investment funds into companies operating in deep-tech, advanced manufacturing and life sciences across the region. This marks an important step towards completing Mindforge’s full capitalisation and was made possible by investments by MI partners, the East Midlands Combined County Authority, West Midlands Combined Authority, and private investors including Rigby Group.
Support for Mindforge from the East Midlands Combined County Authority and West Midlands Combined Authority was made in line with the aims and objectives set out in a compact signed by both Combined Authorities in March.
Planning for the Invest in UK University R&D: Midlands Campaign 2026 trade missions is already underway. The campaign sees universities, businesses, regional organisations, local and regional government, the UK Government working collectively to attract greater levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into our region’s Research and Development (R&D). Trade missions are being arranged for Australia, the US, France and more. The campaign will also ambitiously host the UK’s first Global R&D and Science Investment Summit, as part of London Tech Week in June. Watch this space for more news as the arrangements take shape.
2026 will see a Hydrogen Valley vision for the region created, thanks to the Energy Research Accelerator (ERA) securing support from the EU’s Clean Hydrogen Partnership for Project Development Assistance. Led by East Midlands Pipeline Limited, the project will support the development of a detailed action roadmap to build a thriving economic hydrogen network, including producers, distributors and users.
ERA is a partner of the Energy Security and Green Infrastructure Week in Parliament in January. They will host a series of roundtables with parliamentarians, business leaders and regional government on Nuclear, Energy for Critical Infrastructure, and Energy Storage.
The region’s largest energy conference will also be hosted by the Energy Research Accelerator on 16th June at the Vaillant Arena, Derby. Taking place to coincide with plans for an inaugural East Midlands Tech Week, Forging Ahead will also host a session on Day One of tech week.
I am delighted that experts across ERA and MI Health are collaborating to explore ways that their networks could potentially work together to address energy and net-zero challenges faced across the health and community care sectors.
Four themed workshops will be delivered covering the breadth of opportunities for innovation, research, and impact, from clinical practice to estates management, from community wellbeing to transport, from green supply chains to waste management and more.
Between January and March, researchers, practitioners, and partners will be brought together to shape collaborative opportunities for innovative action, as well as delivering insights and policy recommendations. To express an interest in attending one of the workshops, or to find out more, contact MI Health Programme Manager, Alex Archibald.
In March, I am excited to see Midlands Open Research Week return even bigger and better. Taking place between 16th-20th March MI, with new partner universities, will host a week‑long event celebrating open research. Watch out for more news in the coming weeks announcing inspiring sessions on how open research drives engagement, innovation and impact.
And finally, a core component of our partnership is the networks we help to facilitate which bring together academics, technicians and professional service colleagues across our university partner institutions. They meet to share knowledge, explore ways to collaborate and they champion our partnership’s research strengths in these areas. If you are interested in joining any of these networks, or to learning more about them, they are each planning to host conferences in 2026:
- MI Flow Cytometry Conference – 6th March, University of Birmingham, registration now open
- MI Electron Microscopy Conference – 21st April, University of Warwick, registrations will open soon, details will be posted here
- MI Extracellular Vesicles Conference – 16th April, University of Nottingham, registration now open
- Midlands Biophysical Network, details of their conference will be posted here
