If you have an idea that could help your business innovate but require outside expertise to bring it to fruition, joint research with a university could be the solution – and thanks to government support, the funding required by your business could be surprisingly low.
Imperial’s academics are helping companies to develop new technologies, up-skill workforces, and build advanced systems, processes and business models. While some of our partners invest tens of millions of pounds in large projects and research centres, you don’t necessarily need to make a major investment to achieve a step change in your company’s performance.
For UK businesses, most of the cost could be covered by funding body Innovate UK under a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), a one- to three-year project in which a talented graduate leads a project to transfer knowledge from our labs to your business.
KTPs are ideal for large businesses that would like to dip their toes into academic partnerships, and SMEs that wish to pursue academic collaboration at an affordable cost. Innovate UK covers half to two thirds of the cost and offers significant guidance throughout the application process. Impressively, over 80% of all applications for the funding are successful.
As a world-leading university embedded within London’s dynamic economy, we are a great choice of academic partner. We warmly welcome enquiries about KTPs from newcomers to our enterprise ecosystem as well as organisations that are already working with us and companies founded by Imperial staff or students. If you’d like to talk more about opportunities for KTPs or other forms of partnership, please email us on enterprise@imperial.ac.uk.
Dr Simon Hepworth
Director of Enterprise
Imperial College London