Centres of Excellence and Commercial Outreach, Bradford University

Through our work with Yorkshire Forward, we built a close working relationship with Bradford University, resulting in a £200k contract to help the University organise and rearrange its Centres of Excellence and commercial outreach. This exercise encompassed taking established centres at the University, such as the Centre for Polymers, and producing business plans that focused on market sectors, in difference to the underlying competence and technology. This, for example, took Polymers into the Medical sector and created wider reach through projects such as China Connections. Our work with Bradford University resulted in the establishment of six internal centres, with average centre income increasing 30% year on year.

Our work with Bradford also included submission of a successful ERDF bid for the Business Sustainability Centre, development of student competitions and awards, and delivery of innovative programmes for knowledge exploitation. One such programme being a joint exercise between Bradford, Sheffield Hallam and Hull universities which followed the ‘Dragon’s Den’ model but with the aim of engaging with investors and senior industrialists willing to work alongside academics to license their IP and technologies. The aim of this model was to bring in licensing revenue in areas where academics and, indeed, the universities, were reluctant to create new business ventures. This pilot was well received and of the 11 opportunities we presented, three received further support.