www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise
Supporting
entrepreneurs
STAFF
LABEL
TRAINING
ICANN
E-commerce
FOXHUNT
LONDON’S GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
Expand
UniqueLABEL
Advise
Incubator
Start
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space
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AND ANALYSIS
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ENTERPRISE
PARTNERSHIPS
Grow
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CONTACT
For general enquiries, contact:
enterprise@ucl.ac.uk
www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise
@UCLEnterprise
www.ucl.ac.uk/advances
www.uclb.com
Consulting with experts
www.ucl.ac.uk/consultants‎
UCL Enterprise
Gower Street
London, WC1E 6BT
© UCL 2014
Design: Navig8
CONTACT
For general enquiries, contact:
enterprise@ucl.ac.uk
www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise
@UCLEnterprise
UCL Enterprise
Gower Street
London, WC1E 6BT
© UCL 2014
Design: Navig8
Partnerships
UCL
Advances
Annual Review
2012/2013
UCL
Business
Plc
UCL
Consultants
Ltd
1
Consulting with experts
CONTENTS
UCL
Enterprise
Annual Review
2012/2013
Enterprise at
a glance
Activity reports
06 Enterprise by numbers
08 2012/2013 Overview from the
Vice-Provost (Enterprise)
12 Enterprise connections
14 Report Tag Cloud
18 UCL Advances
20 UCL Business Plc
22 UCL Consultants Ltd
24 UCL Corporate Partnerships
26 UCL Translational Research Office
28UCL School Knowledge Transfer and
Enterprise Board Chairs
Our year in
the media
64 Impact through publicity
Success
stories
38Collaboration
50 Embedding enterprise
56 Supporting entrepreneurs
Our year in
awards
70 2013 UCL Awards for
Enterprise
3
Enterprise at
a glance
• Enterprise by numbers
•O
verview from
the Vice-Provost
(Enterprise)
•E
nterprise connections
• Report Tag Cloud
Enterprise by
numbers
600
Support for over
200
Over
student business ideas
supported
of London’s small businesses
1,800
consultancy projects
delivered to date
£79m
portfolio of industrysponsored research
awards
Nature Biotechnology
ranked us
Third
globally for academic-industry
partnerships in May
(see http://www.nature.com/
bioent/2013/130401/full/
bioe.2013.5.html)
£106m
of enterprise income
recorded in HEBCI
854
registered
consultants
Over
45,000
student learner hours delivered by UCL
Advances
One
60
Number
among leading universities, UCL has the highest
proportion of its EPSRC research grant portfolio
supported by industrial partners. The
average value of our grants with partners
is 75% higher than those without.
active spin-outs
£25m
award portfolio supported by the
Translational Research Office
45
patents filed
100
Over
businesses trained in the UCL
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small
Businesses programme
7
2012/2013
Overview from
the Vice-Provost
(Enterprise)
A welcome from the
Vice-Provost
UCL shows a continued commitment
to innovation, impact, wealth and
prosperity.
Welcome to this, the second full
year of the delivery phase of UCL’s
enterprise strategy. As anticipated,
our community continues to strive for
excellence, and that approach and
commitment is clearly working.
Whether it’s our working with
corporations and assisting student
entrepreneurs or spinning out
research, I hope that you enjoy
reading about all our enterprise
activities from across the university in
our Annual Review 2012/2013.
Going from strength to strength
The leading role of UCL in enterprise
continues to gain even greater public
recognition, providing even more
opportunities for UCL’s outstanding
enterprise community to apply their
expertise for the broader benefit of
society. With that comes funding
opportunities, much needed in order
for us to invest in additional support
for our community.
Welcome to new members of
the team
In 2012/2013 we welcomed several
new members to the enterprise team
to support the UCL community.
Firstly, Roger de Montfort, UCL
alumnus (Greek and Latin), made a
welcome return to UCL, as Managing
Director of UCL Consultants Ltd.
Gurpreet Jagpal has joined us from
the University of Birmingham to the
new role of Deputy Director of UCL
Advances and now holds operational
responsibility for its activities.
Finally, Professor Andrew Eder has
been appointed as Associate ViceProvost, with responsibilities for
Continuing Professional Development
(CPD) and short courses.
Funding and income highlights
UCL received a welcome boost
this year through an increase in its
allocation from the Higher Education
Innovation Fund (HEIF), with a
confirmed increase to £3.35m for
each of the years 2013/2014 and
2014/2015.
UCL has also received a major
award from the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC). Announced by Vince Cable
at UCL spin-out Space Syntax, UCL
received the second largest Impact
Acceleration Account from the
EPSRC, valued at £4.47m over
three years.
We were also delighted to be in
receipt of Impact Awards from
the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
and the Natural Environment
Research Council (NERC), and to
learn UCL was the largest recipient
of translational funding from both the
Medical Research Council (MRC) and
the Wellcome Trust.
10%
increase in our industry
contract portfolio
Our industry contract portfolio increased
to £80m, up by 10% from last year. UCL
continues to see a dramatic increase in
industry funded PhD students, with 320
students now funded in this way. This
represents a doubling of numbers over
the last two years.
UCL Consultants now has 854 registered
consultants, up from 650 in 2012, with a
contract value that has increased from
£3.8m to £7m over the last year.
UCL Business (UCLB) continues to
be one of the leaders in research
commercialisation in the UK, delivering
substantial profits again this year.
UCL’s entrepreneurs
UCL continues to be unambiguously
committed to supporting members of our
community who want to set up businesses.
UCLB has helped four UCL projects
successfully bid to the Technology Strategy
Board and the Medical Research Council
(TSB/MRC) Biomedical Catalyst for more
than £6m in early stage projects. These
include two UCL spin-out companies,
Canbex and Domainex.
In February, UCLB concluded a licensing
deal for a Factor VIII gene therapy
programme for haemophilia A to BioMarin,
using the research
from Professor Amit
Nathwani and his
team at UCL and
St. Jude Children’s
Research Hospital.
The current market
for haemophilia A
products is estimated
as $6bn worldwide.
UCL continues to play
a lead role in supporting
student entrepreneurs
and in the academic year
2012/2013 advised over 200
students with business ideas
and helped support the
creation of 64 student
businesses. A
further round
of 10 Bright
Ideas Awards
were funded,
providing
£80,000 of
support for
budding
estimated market for
student
haemophillia A products
entrepreneurs.
For creative
entrepreneurs,
UCL has launched
$6bn
9
2012/2013
Overview from
the Vice-Provost
(Enterprise)
© UCL
such as Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s and
other related
disorders.
Launchbox, UCL’s first
pop-up shop in Boxpark,
in the heart of East
London. Here, a wide range
of exciting new designs and
products from UCL’s creative
and design community are
being showcased.
Translational research and
industry partnerships
The Translational Research Office
(TRO) continues to develop at a
very impressive rate and under the
leadership of Dr David Miller has now
established a portfolio of 21 projects
with a total value of £25m, up from
£7.7m in 2011.
UCL has also been awarded £750k
from the Medical Research Council
(MRC) which has been used to
support seven early stage small
molecule therapeutic discovery
projects.
Education and impact through
e-learning
The UCL community is excited by
the opportunities for promoting
educational
impact through e-learning and is
exploring a variety of approaches
to achieve its goals. Through the
leadership of Professor Andrew
Eder we have developed UCL
eXtend, a platform that provides a
single portal for non-credit bearing
courses at UCL.
Collaboration
UCL is committed to strategic
partnerships and in 2013 we
formed a major new partnership
with Eisai. This alliance will
involve researchers from both
organisations cooperating to
investigate innovative new ways
of treating neurological diseases
Our work with the
government on the Tech
City project continues
apace. In December 2012,
David Cameron announced
IDEALondon, an innovation ‘hothouse’ established by UCL, Cisco
and DC Thomson as the Innovation
and Digital Enterprise Alliance (IDEA).
It’s anticipated IDEALondon – based
£7.7m
increase from 2011 for Translational
Research Office
£100,000
won at Oxford Biotech
Roundtable event, a business
plan competition
in Shoreditch – will host around 25
digital and media companies. They
will benefit from support, mentoring
and access to UCL DECIDE, the
world’s largest ‘living lab’ for digital
and media projects – a closed
community for testing and evaluating
digital products in pre-commercial
development.
Impact through publicity
UCL Enterprise continues to hit
the news with weekly stories in a
variety of print and social media.
Coverage over the period 2012/2013
was up compared to the previous
year, with coverage in outlets
including the Mail on Sunday,
Financial Times and City AM.
The
UCL
community
has been widely
recognised and highlighted
as a leader in enterprise, and was
recently ranked third in the world for
life science deals with industry in
nature biotechnology.
UCL spin-outs have received a
number of awards and accolades
including Abcodia, a UCL cancer
screening company, which
picked up a total of four awards
at the NatWest Startups Business
of the Year. Senceive won an
international tunnelling award
for its work with Halcrow on the
Bond Street development.
Meanwhile, two members of UCL
Biochemical Engineering won a
£100,000 business plan competition
at the Oxford Biotech Roundtable
event for their business Puridify.
In
London,
Mayor
Boris Johnson
got behind Reseed
– the brainchild of two UCL
students – with £20,000, to get their
idea to replace paper receipts going.
Summary
It has been another amazing year
of enterprise at UCL. You can read
much more in the pages that follow,
but even that is only a snapshot of
the breadth of work underway at this,
London’s Global University.
Stephen Caddick
Vice-Provost (Enterprise)
11
© 2014 Linkedin
Enterprise
connections
Graphic
representation
of Timothy
Barnes’s
LinkedIn
network
Timothy Barnes,
Director, UCL
Enterprise
Operations
and UCL Advances
Deepak
Jayaraman,
Executive Director,
Corporate
Engagement,
Goldman Sachs
Jolyon White,
UCL Goldman
Sachs, 10,000
Small Businesses
Programme Tutor
One of 100 10,000
Small Businesses
Programme
participants to
date delivered by
UCL Advances
The period of this review covers the 20th anniversary of the publication
in 1992 of a paper by anthropologist Prof Robin Dunbar, then at UCL and
now at Oxford, which has been remembered for the formulation of ‘Dunbar’s
Number’. This is a measurement of the “cognitive limit to the number of
individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships.”
It has been cited by leading members of the technical teams behind services
such as Facebook and Google as a key understanding in the development
of social network theory and the growth of an industry that has led to several
of the biggest companies in the world today.
In this review, we have not attempted
to quantify the limit to UCL’s stable
relationships in enterprise activities,
but we have sought to underline that
such activities can now be found in
every faculty of the university and at
every level. This is evidence for us
meeting one of the five core aims
that we set out in the UCL Enterprise
Strategy 2011– 2015, namely, “To
ensure that enterprise is embedded
across the breadth of academic
activities”. We can be confident that
there is now demonstrable evidence
for this being achieved.
skills training through UCL Advances,
roughly in line with student numbers
by faculty, and almost every faculty
has examples of spin-out activities
supported by UCL Business and
consultancy activity facilitated by
UCL Consultants. The respective
partnerships teams that align with
UCL’s three schools have delivered
engagements that support core
research and teaching activities
across the wide range of our
intellectual landscape. Examples of
all of these activities can be found in
this Annual Review.
Students from across the institution
look to take part in extra-curricular
The fact that UCL maintains such a
wide variety of enterprise activities
is a critical part of why we are
successful in this area: there are
scale and liquidity benefits gained
from every new interaction.
Companies to whom we provide
training value the benefits they have
received from us and are then willing
hosts for UCL students looking for
internship opportunities to develop
their skills or as real world examples
for projects in regular teaching
activities. Successful experiences
between some of these companies
and UCL departments can then
develop and lead to research
collaborations via PhD sponsorship,
contract research or a host of other
Throughout this document we have illustrated
some of the connections UCL Enterprise has
enabled in 2012/2013. Below shows just one
example of how the programmes within
UCL Enterprise connect and grow.
UCL Advances Student
Internships Programme
takes over 100 students
a year and places them
in SME’s for up to eight
weeks, including 10
based in Kenya.
UCL Advances
Business
Mentoring
scheme
UCL Faculty
of Arts and
Humanities
Michael Button,
UCL BA European Social
and Political Studies,
September 2013
Participated in the UCL
Advances internship
scheme at Cause4
which led to full-time
employment
Provided
financial
support
engagements. Big companies that
we work with likewise look for a
single connection point within
UCL, often seeking research
partnerships that span multiple
faculties, studentships and
community engagement activities.
Michelle Wright,
Founder and
Chief Executive,
Cause4
“Universities play a
unique role in society
by providing structures
where academic
experts, practitioners
and tomorrow’s leaders
connect to each other.”
Timothy Barnes
These common interests link internal
departments together that might
otherwise not have obvious reasons to
engage with each other. In turn, those
newly connected points can reach
out, bringing new talent and resources
into the university as well as taking our
knowledge outwards.
This is our model for the connected,
enterprising university and the theme
for this review. It is distinctive and – as
we show throughout – it is of benefit to
both UCL’s core mission in teaching
and research and to our wider societal
and economic responsibilities.
Timothy Barnes
Director, UCL Enterprise Operations
Director, UCL Advances
“Networking is a vital part
of idea generation for
any business. There are
some brilliant training
courses, such as the
Goldman Sachs 10,000
Small Businesses
programme, that do
this in spades. There’s
nothing so levelling as
networking with others,
finding out the realities,
sharing information and
realising that everyone is
facing the same issues...
We all need to reach
out to others, creating
connections to support
and redefine success.”
Michelle Wright, Founder and Chief
Executive, Cause4
The Guardian, August 2013
13
industry
Report
Tag Cloud
arts
London
corporate
world
advances
creative
UK
impact
evaluate
achieve
local
public
initiatives
school
technology
en
team
building
funding
future
social
entrepreneurs
alliance
network
people
fact
transfer
help
enables
approach
knowledge
bright
change
digital
city
activities
board
collaboration
humanities
university
support
working
management
mapping
consultants
education
partnership
social
ideas
cisco
evaluate
students
excellence
leading
These are the key words
on this report. The larger
the word, the more
frequently it has been
mentioned.
facilitate
activities
scienc
opportunities
partners
drug
platforms
Nike
business
strategy
tech
project
institute
result
promote
nterprise
performance
forward
small
development
successful
media
awards
innovation
design
study
faculty
problem
strengths
launched
engineering
planning
research
community
ces
companies
focus
services
trust
UCL Goldman
Sachs 10,000
Small Businesses
programme
Activity reports
2012/2013
• UCL
• UCL
• UCL
• UCL
• UCL
•U
CL
Advances
Business Plc
Consultants Ltd
Corporate Partnerships
Translational Research Office
School Knowledge Transfer
and Enterprise Boards
UCL Advances
Enhancing enterprise
– locally, nationally and
internationally
Gurpreet
Jagpal
Deputy Director
UCL Advances
UCL Advances, the centre for entrepreneurship
and business interaction at UCL, supports anyone
who wants to learn about, start or grow a business
– across all UCL departments and beyond.
In fact, in 2013 we worked with more
students, staff and businesses from
beyond UCL’s walls than ever before.
To help meet the demand, in 2012
we recruited Gurpreet Jagpal from
the University of Birmingham into the
newly created role of Deputy Director.
Gurpreet brings extensive experience
of enterprise programmes, operations
and hands-on management to
the team, particularly among
postgraduate students through his
MBA accreditation.
Getting innovative with creativity
In the past, we have been perceived
as being focused on tech-based
start-ups, reflecting the origins of UCL
Advances within UCL Engineering.
As is the case with so much of UCL,
part of the strength that we look to
build on comes from that scale
and breadth.
However, in 2012/2013, we have
launched strong new programmes
to support student entrepreneurs in
a wider range of interest areas. In
particular, we have developed our
services for new business ideas in
the creative sectors with the launch
of U-Create: www.ucl.ac.uk/u-create.
This initiative takes anyone who is
interested in a creative business
through the process of designing,
making and selling a new product.
For students, we have looked to
develop a series of specialised
schemes that help people from as
wide a variety of backgrounds and
interests as we have represented
at UCL.
We have linked U-Create to another
new initiative for 2012/2013, called
UCL LaunchBox. This is a pop-up
shop we opened on 5 June 2013 in
BoxPark, Shoreditch. Here, students
and partners with new products can
gain validation for them through
genuine sales to members of
the public.
U-Create and LaunchBox
complement other programmes,
including the CleanTech Challenge,
the China-UK Challenge and the
broader London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge. Every year the latter takes
hundreds of students from across
UCL through the basics of how to
start a business.
Wherever there’s a UCL student,
there’s an entrepreneur
Wherever there are students in
UCL, you’ll find an interest in
entrepreneurship and our activities
touch every faculty and department.
Beyond our student community, the
same breadth can also be seen.
In 2012/2013 we delivered new
research-led activity through five new
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
(KTPs) in Computer
Science,
Interaction
Centre,
Bartlett
School
100
interns placed
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
Activity
reports
Five new
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
of
Graduate
Studies,
Bartlett Centre
for Advanced Spatial
Analysis and Electronic and Electrical
Engineering departments. We worked
with companies in areas as diverse
as robotics, restaurants, wearable
tech developers, video production
companies, interior designers, solar
technology companies and architects
by placing over 100 interns (including
10 in Kenya!), matching 170
companies to mentors and training
300 small business leaders.
170
companies matched
to 300 small business
leaders for mentoring
In this year more than ever, we
have seen that enterprise and
entrepreneurship truly range across
UCL and beyond.
“This has been my first year at UCL and UCL Advances. It’s been great to
get stuck into delivering existing activities and to help shape and deliver new
initiatives that cater to a wider audience of staff, students and businesses
from areas we have historically not engaged. For 2013/2014 I see UCL
Advances continuing to take this innovative approach to support an even
greater number of entrepreneurs and small businesses that form an integral
part of the UK economy.”
Gurpreet Jagpal, Deputy Director, UCL Advances
19
51
UCL Business
Maximising the value
of UCL’s intellectual
property and its impact
on our world
41
new licences in 2012/2013
306
new patents applied
for in 2012/2013
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
total licences at 31 July 2013
UCL Business (UCLB) helps to
develop UCL’s innovations from
idea through to practice.
We achieve this by working with the
university’s researchers to:
• identify novel ideas and concepts
• develop strategies for their
commercialisation
• invest and secure finance through
partners and collaborators
• create essential and useful
licensable intellectual property (IP),
services, products and businesses.
Our principal mission is to realise the
value of UCL’s IP – in its broadest
sense – which includes increasing
UCL’s impact on our economy,
society and the environment we
live in.
Investing even more in the future
During the past year we accepted
an impressive 139 new ideas into
our pipeline and continued with our
strategy of supporting and building
value in the portfolio with £2.3m
(2011/2012 – £2.0m) invested in
new and existing patents and Proof
of Concept projects. In addition, we
invested a further £2.3m
(2011/2012 – £0.6m) into our spin-out
companies.
Our portfolio now consists of 750
active and diverse projects. These
range from very early ideas to
successful spin-outs and includes
many products on the market that
contribute to our daily lives. As
a result of these endeavours our
turnover for the year increased to
£9.3m (from £8.7m in 2011/2012)
and we were able to distribute £2.1m
to UCL and UCL inventors (up from
£1.1m in 2011/2012).
Working for the health of the NHS
Strengthening our existing
relationships with the NHS, we have
also extended our own partnerships
to include working with a number
of NHS Foundation Trusts including
UCLH, Royal Free London,
Moorfields Eye Hospital and Great
Ormond Street Hospital.
Of particular importance to the NHS
and the wider world
is the new potential
therapy for the treatment
of haemophilia A. This could,
in years to come, lead to a cure
for this serious and life-threatening
condition.
Other notable initiatives of the last
12 months include a new spin-out,
Amalyst Limited, which aims to
reduce the cost of producing fuel
cells, and a new social enterprise –
‘Tiny Tastes’ – a simple tasting game
designed to help parents encourage
their young children to eat more
vegetables.
With many more novel ideas making
good progress with the assistance of
UCLB, we continue to support UCL,
UCL Enterprise and our partners
to contribute to the delivery of their
transformational vision to make a
change in the way universities, the
NHS, industry and society work
together for the betterment of all.
60
equity holdings as at
31 July 2013
306
number of
patent families
at 31 July 2013
Activity
reports
£2.3m
invested into spin-outs
made in 2012/2013
£954k
funding for 26 Proof of Concept projects
in 2012/2013
£31m
of translational research grants
£9.3m
turnover in 2012/2013
21
UCL Consultants
Building for the future
on the firm foundations
of the past
2012/2013 has been an exciting year of transition
for UCL Consultants Ltd, with the arrival of
Roger de Montfort as its new Managing Director
signalling the beginning of a period of change and
growth for the company.
Roger’s strategy to take the
company forward builds on its strong
foundations to grow consultancy
activity at UCL, reaching out to the
university’s academics and beyond to
the marketplace.
The goal is to ensure that UCL
Consultants becomes the goto provider of expert academic
consulting services in its areas of
expertise, and that UCL Consultants
makes it easy and productive for its
internal and external clients to do
business.
One expert team, four service
offerings for consultancy
Four service offerings have been
identified and plans are being
developed to expand these activities
across UCL and to connect them with
clients externally. These include:
• academic consultancy
• expert witness services
• testing and analysis services
• training and short courses.
Diversity is in our DNA
The past year has seen us involved
in an incredibly varied range of
initiatives, including the conclusion
of the ICANN (Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers)
project, involving the creation of
new top level domain names. This
promises to change the way we
use the internet and the newlyapproved names are expected to be
making an impact by early 2014.
In addition, UCL Consultants has
been closely involved with the
establishment of the London Implant
Retrieval Centre (LIRC) within the
Institute of Orthopaedics. The LIRC
is a clinical research facility providing
UCL Faculty of
Mathematical
and Physical
Sciences
expert data and analysis on
removed hip implants for
surgeons and patients. We have
facilitated this body’s work in
this area, including the provision
of expert witness evidence and
litigation support.
UCL Consultants has also
continued to develop its fruitful
relationship with the UCL Mullard
Space Science Laboratory
(MSSL) helping it to deliver several
notable projects to the European
Space Agency (ESA). These
included training for ESA Project
Managers and the development
of a Hot Plasma Monitor to ensure
the effective operation of satellite
telecommunications.
Leading brand names, including Nike
and L’Oréal, have worked with UCL
Consultants to tap into the expertise
that our renowned institution has to
offer. We continue to act as a gateway
for industry and the public sector,
enabling them to draw upon the
rich fund of knowledge available at
London’s Global University.
236
new projects
Activity
reports
854
total consultants
£6.9m
turnover
£8.8m
value of new projects
208
new consultants
Consulting with experts
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
UCL Faculty
of Medical
Sciences
23
UCL Corporate
Partnerships
Changing the way
companies think
© 2013 BHP Billiton
UCL Corporate Partnerships connects
with faculties across the university to develop
multi-disciplinary initiatives and steward existing
strategic relationships with global companies.
‘Partnership, not membership’ is
how one strategic partner summed
up UCL’s tailored approach to
industry collaboration, reflecting the
pioneering, inter-disciplinary spirit
across the university to find creative
solutions to societal challenges.
During the year, UCL Corporate
Partnerships laid the groundwork
for many future collaborations
(including a new multi-million pound
partnership which will be announced
in early 2014), alongside signing
the university’s first agreement with
Dyson, and the continuation and
expansion of projects with EDF and
Aon Benfield.
Going for growth with established
partners
UCL and UCL Consultants Ltd’s
relationship with ICANN (Internet
Corportarion for Assigned Names
and Numbers) flourished, thanks
to Chris Dillon, Research Associate
in Linguistic Computing in the UCL
Faculty of Arts & Humanities, and
his involvement in the project and
contribution to several high-level
international committees.
The triple-helix project with Cisco
has continued to grow, with the
company named UCL Enterprise
Corporate Partner of the Year at
UCL’s Enterprise Awards 2013.
Additionally, another three-way
partnership with DC Thomson, Cisco
and UCL has been established to
create IDEALondon, an ‘innovation
hot-house’ in the heart of Tech City.
The first cohort of UCL students on
the Cisco International Internship
Programme also returned from
San Jose, having impressed their
corporate host so much that the
initiative will be significantly expanded
for future intakes.
The relationship with Intel, another
triple-helix partnership, reached a
significant milestone in 2013, with
the first board meeting for the Intel
Collaborative Research Institute
for Sustainable Connected Cities
bringing together stakeholders from
the company’s European and US
offices with researchers from both
UCL and Imperial College London.
Hosted by UCL, the meeting included
a student poster session and
planning for new areas of smart cities
research. Thanks to support from the
Bartlett, the expanding Intel and UCL
team at the institute entered its first
full year of operation from a home in
the UCL Energy Institute.
The UCL Institute for Sustainable
Resources expanded in May with
the appointment of Professor
Raimund Bleischwitz to the position
of BHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable
Global Resources. The institute was
established in 2011 through the
support and sponsorship of BHP
Billiton, a previous UCL Enterprise
Corporate Partner of the Year.
UCL Faculty
of Medical
Sciences
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
Activity
reports
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
UCL Faculty
of Mathematical
and Physical
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
Enduring relationships transcend
centuries
2013 also saw the 150-year
anniversary of the Choshu Five.
The historic moment in 1863 saw
five young Japanese noblemen of
the Choshu clan of Western Japan
illegally leave the country to come to
England and study at UCL. These
pioneers of the Meiji period later went
on to become incredibly important
figures in the establishment of modern
Japan. UCL Corporate Partnerships,
alongside UCL Development and
Alumni Relations, was involved with
organising a dinner that brought
together many high-profile people
from both Japan and Britain to
commemorate this major event in the
country’s history.
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
UCL Faculty
of Arts and
Humanities
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
25
UCL Translational
Research Office
Growing the
integration of
biomedical
translation
and industrial
partnerships
UCL Translational Research Office (TRO)
enhances enterprise through integrated support
for translational research, industry partnerships
and drug discovery.
The TRO builds on an increasingly
vibrant translational culture in the
School of Life and Medical Sciences
(SLMS) and wider university
community. Through working with
a broad spectrum of investigators,
we facilitate the translation of UCL’s
emerging research into therapies,
techniques and medical products
with therapeutic value.
In fact, 2012/13 has seen growth
in both the scale and breadth of
support that the TRO provides to UCL
researchers.
Partnerships drive growth
Our Translational Research Managers
have been pivotal in securing grant
funding in 2012/2013, exceeding
£25M, from multiple sources
(including Medical Research Council
(MRC), Wellcome Trust, National
Institute for Health Research (NIHR),
Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and
various charities), and now manage
a growing portfolio of over 30 major
translational projects.
Partnership activities to support
SLMS’ enterprise strategy have
included the development of
a major alliance with Eisai in
neurodegeneration drug discovery
and the establishment of a UCL
academic hub, in association with
the University of Cambridge, at
the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst
Innovation Centre. The recruitment
of a group of dedicated Industrial
Partnership Managers into the TRO is
already accelerating these initiatives
and opening up new avenues for
industrial engagement.
Core medicinal chemistry facility
established
In response to its growing database
of early-stage drug discovery
programmes and opportunities,
UCL is investing in even more
expertise to strengthen its capabilities
in this key field.
This has resulted in the TRO
establishing a core medicinal
chemistry facility with funding secured
from the Wellcome Trust Institutional
Strategic Support Fund. Populated
by experienced, industry-background
medicinal chemists, the newly-formed
group is already providing theoretical
and practical expertise to support the
progression of selected UCL projects.
Through this integrated approach to
enabling translation at UCL, the TRO
links investigators to a broad range
of financial, industrial and practical
resources for projects at all phases –
discovery, preclinical or clinical.
UCL Faculty of
Mathematical
and Physical
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
Activity
reports
According to KPI data on the size of the
TRO translational portfolio (numbers and
value of projects), the scale of translational
awards across SLMS (numbers and value
of agreements) is as follows:
21
Awards between December 2008
and May 2013
UCL has the largest Medical
Research Council (MRC)
Developmental Pathway Funding
Scheme/Developmental Clinical
Studies (DPFS/DCS) portfolio
of any UK university (21 awards
between Dec 2008 and May 2013)
UCL Faculty
of Brain
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of Medical
Sciences
25m
UCL Faculty
of Population
Health Sciences
One
UCL was recently ranked the top
university in the UK and third in
the world as a partner for industry
within the biotechnology and
pharmaceutical sectors. Nature
Biotechnology, Online publication
25 April 2013. (http://www.nature.
com/bioent/2013/130401/full/
bioe.2013.5.html)
More than
grant funding secured in
2012/2013
Number
UCL Faculty
of Life
Sciences
27
Global
University
UCL School
Knowledge
Transfer and
Enterprise
Boards
3
schools
Thanks to the huge variety of talented people we are
proud to say study at UCL, this historic institution is
considered London’s Global University. However, as
UCL comprises 10 faculties across a wide variety of
disciplines, it is, in fact, the Capital’s largest leading
multi-disciplinary university.
Our faculties are grouped into three
schools – UCL School of Life and
Medical Sciences (SLMS); UCL
School of the Barlett, Engineering
Sciences and Mathematical and
Physical Sciences (BEAMS); and UCL
School of Law, Arts and Humanities,
Social and Historical Sciences and
Slavonic and Eastern European
Studies (SLASH).
Each school has a UCL Knowledge
Transfer and Enterprise Board
Chair who supports our faculty
academic staff to ensure knowledge
is effectively transferred from the
university into useful applications
for wider society. These applications
cover a broad range of initiatives,
from working with business and
corporates to influencing government
and other public bodies.
UCL SCHOOL OF
LAW, ARTS AND
HUMANITIES, SOCIAL
AND HISTORICAL
SCIENCES AND
SLAVONIC AND
EASTERN EUROPEAN
STUDIES (SLASH)
UCL Faculty
of Social and
Historical
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of Laws
UCL Faculty
of Arts and
Humanities
UCL Faculty
of Brain
Sciences
Activity
reports
UCL Faculty
of Life
Sciences
UCL SCHOOL
OF LIFE AND
MEDICAL
SCIENCES
(SLMS)
UCL Faculty
of Medical
Sciences
UCL SCHOOL OF
THE BARTLETT;
ENGINEERING
SCIENCES AND
MATHEMATICAL
AND PHYSICAL
SCIENCES (BEAMS)
UCL Faculty
of Population
Health
Sciences
10
UCL Faculty
of The Built
Environment
Faculties
UCL
Faculty of
Mathematical
and Physical
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
29
UCL School
Of Life and
Medical Sciences
Knowledge Transfer
and Enterprise
Board
Steve Moss
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
UCL Faculty
of Brain
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of Life
Sciences
Neil Miller
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
UCL Faculty
of Medical
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of Population
Health
Sciences
Rachel
Chambers
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
Steve
Humphries
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
Thanks to strong and dynamic leadership from
our seven Knowledge Transfer and Enterprise
Champions, the culture across the School of
Life and Medical Sciences (SLMS) has been
transformed through a series of local activities
promoting enterprise.
The SLMS Knowledge Transfer and
Enterprise Board has developed
five summary Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) that our Vice-Deans
(Enterprise) feed back to individual
faculties to enable them to evaluate
and act on their strengths and
weaknesses.
These mechanisms help us to identify
and develop bold and imaginative
initiatives focused on enterprise.
A good example of this in action
is the significant engagement now
planned at a cross-school level with
the Stevenage Biosciences Catalyst,
a high-profile entrepreneurial
partnership with GlaxoSmithKline and
Cambridge University.
Another example is the commercial
incubator space that will come online
in 2014, embedded in the Institute of
Cognitive Neuroscience.
further in 2013. Our cumulative total
funds secured through the TRO
stands at almost £40M, with a healthy
pipeline.
Our Vice-Deans (Enterprise) are also
planning industry open days, the first
of which (Sensory Systems, in the
Faculty of Brain Sciences) took place
in November 2013.
The TRO has gained the confidence
of external stakeholders, such as the
Medical Research Council and the
Technology Strategy Board (MRC/
TSB), who regard our activities as
leading among UK Higher Education
Institutions (HEIs). The MRC, for
example, has now competitively
awarded significant ‘Confidence in
Concept’ funds to accelerate drug
development.
Exceptional support from
the Translational Research
Office (TRO)
Our strategy is underpinned by
operational excellence in the form
of the TRO. This holds and project
manages our technology transfer
portfolio of grants, which has risen
The TRO is further spearheading
major developments in facilitating
medicinal chemistry that link UCL’s
Lastminute.com has
recently begun utilising
UCL Alumna Sally
Brown’s (BSc Human
Sciences 2006)
Tripbod.com to safely
link curious travellers
with trusted locals.
Activity
reports
A Factor VIII gene
therapy program for
haemophilia A has been
licensed to BioMarin.
Formed the
Therapeutic Innovation
Group (TIG) with
Eisai to discover
and assess new and
emerging therapies for
neurological diseases.
School of Pharmacy and Department
of Chemistry. They will also be
central in driving new collaborative
interactions with strategic UCL
assets such as the Francis Crick
Institute. With focused purpose
and adequate funding, the fruits of
this approach have been seen in
the recent signing of a major new
collaboration with the pharmaceutical
company Eisai, which will interface
with the new Leonard Wolfson
Experimental Neurology Centre.
More and broader-based
enterprise focused collaboration
A major focus for 2013 was
building effective entrepreneurial
partnerships with our three National
Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
Biomedical Research Centres
(BRCs) and Dementia Biomedical
Research Unit, whose renewed
focus on experimental medicine
will enhance opportunity.
The BRCs partner in the SLMS
Therapeutic Innovation Fund
pump-primes small molecule drug
development opportunities. However,
exciting opportunities lie in more
areas than just drug development,
and we are partnering with the
cross-School Institute of Biomedical
Engineering to drive forward medical
technology and devices in a much
broader framework.
Designed by a multidisciplinary team of health
professionals, TrimTots is
the only evidence-based
programme proven effective
in preventing obesity in
pre-school children.
In the near future we anticipate
more stimulating new opportunities
to partner with the School of the
Bartlett, Engineering Sciences and
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
(BEAMS) investigators to facilitate
major cross-school co-operation
and collaboration in the health sector
more generally.
31
UCL School of the
Bartlett, Engineering
Sciences and
Mathematical and
Physical Sciences
Knowledge Transfer
and Enterprise
Board
UCL
Faculty of
Mathematical
and Physical
Sciences
UCL Faculty
of The Built
Environment
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
David
Chapman
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
Alan Smith
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
The School of the Bartlett, Engineering Sciences
and Mathematical and Physical Sciences
(BEAMS) Knowledge Transfer and Enterprise
Board (BKTEB) provides a forum for the
strategic development of enterprise across
the school and is attended by the Vice-Deans
(Enterprise) of BEAMS together with the heads
of UCL Advances, UCL Business (UCLB)
and UCL Consultants Ltd. Reports are heard
from the three faculty enterprise committees
and from the faculty enterprise champions.
In general the Board provides a
dynamic environment for debate and
consideration of important enterprise
issues. Its breadth ensures all key
elements that affect BEAMS are well
represented and so encourages a
coherent approach with buy-in across
the School. In the spirit of UCL the
Board encourages entrepreneurship
and free-thinking, seeking to reward
initiative and excellence and being
prepared to recommend investment
as appropriate. Some of the activities
of the Board are described here.
Andrew Edkins
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
An initial study of enterprise
activity within the UCL Faculty of
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
(MAPS) indicated a much higher
level of engagement than was
earlier estimated with a great deal
of enterprise-related interaction
occurring ‘below the radar’. It is
believed that this is also likely to be
true for the other BEAMS faculties.
The BKTEB is determined to improve
enterprise and social enterprise
engagement and delivery across
the School through initiatives,
encouragement, dissemination,
coordination and recommendation.
Enterprise driving empowerment
We don’t see enterprise as a standalone activity, instead we have
embraced its enabling role. Subject
to the availability of support plans, the
development of three brochures has
been agreed:
• How Enterprise Enables Teaching
• How Enterprise Enables Research
• How Enterprise Enables Impact
The latter will be based on the case
study material arising from the
Research Excellence Framework
(REF) exercise.
The Enterprise Champion Scheme
was modified to support initiatives
rather than individuals. As a result, a
range of highly innovative ideas have
been recognised, including:
• a student programming club
• perspectives of a smart city from a
narrow boat
• the retail environment and the
internet of things.
Activity
reports
UCL Bright Ideas
Award winner Bio-bean
recycles coffee grounds
into biodiesel and
biomass pellets, using
a combination of three
existing methodologies.
Dr Kenneth Tong,
via a Knowledge
Transfer Project (KTP),
is establishing an
automated product
development facility with
Techna International.
Recent initiatives
Each of the three BEAMS faculties
coordinates and disseminates its
enterprise activities in subtly different
ways, overseen by the relevant ViceDean (Enterprise). Highlights from
these faculties include:
• UCL Faculty of the Bartlett School
of Architecture – a new series of
events to promote and facilitate
enterprise, titled Bartlett Means
Business
David Wang (BSc
Medicinal Chemistry,
Second year) undertook
an internship with
Evalucom to help
improve the quality of
homecare in London.
• UCL
Faculty of
Engineering
– a new
strategic partnership was
formed between the BBC and
UCL to advance state-of-the-art
communications technologies,
internet research, content
production, user experience (UXD)
and access services. As part of the
agreement, 80 researchers from
both partners have been co-located
ESA (European
Space Agency)
Project
Management
course working
group
in a new,
shared
space at 1
Euston Square
that will act as a gateway for
participation with other universities
and organisations.
• UCL Faculty of Maths and Physical
Sciences – systems engineering
management and related industrial
training is now being delivered
across five continents, including to
the European Space Agency (ESA).
33
UCL Faculty
of Arts and
Humanities
UCL School of Law,
Arts and Humanities,
Social and Historical
Sciences and
Slavonic and Eastern
European Studies
Knowledge Transfer
and Enterprise Board
Chris Dillon
Vice-Dean
(Enterprise)
UCL Faculty
of Laws
UCL Faculty
of Social and
Historical
Sciences
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(Enterprise)
why employers continue to demand
the skills UCL teaches through the
Humanities.
Recent initiatives, working locally,
nationally and internationally
Our Knowledge Transfer and
Enterprise Board encourages
partnerships between entrepreneurs
working outside and inside UCL.
Ulrich Tiedau, one of our Knowledge
Transfer Champions, has been linking
up the arts and the digital world
using the inspiration of the Open
Educational Resources (OER) and
Practices movement to broaden
access to research. With our support
he won a JISC/Higher Education
Academy award. His work can be
followed at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/oer
and on Twitter@Uli_T.
Dr Michael Stewart’s highly
successful Open City Docs film
festival brought 130 arts and science
specialists into conversation, and was
attended by 4000 visitors during four
days in June.
Meanwhile, Dr Dominic Perring and
Sarah Wolferstan’s EDUCCKATE
project has received £500k of EU
funding to put recent graduates of
‘Culture and Creative’ disciplines into
mentored internships with relevant
SMEs, in partnership with UCL
Advances and the Hub King’s Cross.
A book of student essays, Framed
Horizons, on Nordic cinema has,
with KTE support, functioned as a
pilot project to integrate desktop
publishing skills into language
Activity
reports
UCL alumnus Chester
Mojay-Sinclare (BA
Philosophy 2011) has
secured a six-figure
investment for his venture,
Charity Checkout, which
supports small charities
with fundraising online.
65%
of UK MPs have a
Humanities degree
Nick Grant (Law LLB
2013) explored how
Citrus Saturday’s profits
could subsidise social
enterprise opportunities,
while helping create
legal agreements.
and culture teaching. The book
also enabled the German social
enterprise SourceFabric to develop
its collaborative online DTP package
BookType.
Leading a stunningly successful
partnership, the UCL Domain Names
Project, Chris Dillon of the Department
of Information Studies has brought
together UCL Arts & Humanities
expertise with ICANN, the international
organization that coordinates the
Internet’s addressing system. A UCLled team of linguists has checked the
1,930 applications for new generic Top
Level Domains, bringing important
income to the UCL School of Law, Arts
and Humanities,
Social and
Historical
Sciences and
Slavonic and Eastern
European Studies
(SLASH) faculties.
Dr Hilary Orange
(Archaeology Phd 2012)
a UCL Knowledge
Exchange Associate
(KEA) worked with
Archaeology South
East (ASE) to improve
public engagement.
The Survey of English Usage is
another example of how SLASH
academics are engaging with
enterprise. Bas Aarts used the
research consolidated in the British
Component of the International
Corpus of English (ICE-GB) to build
the Internet Grammar of English (IGE),
an introductory English grammar
tool including an app. Developed
with UCL Business
and called the
Interactive Grammar
of English(iGE) both
resources have been
accessed by well over 1.2
million commercial and educational
users.
Last but far from least, the Slade
School of Art held a print fair for late
2013; to sell prints from students,
support future scholarships and offer
hands-on print-making experience
to the public. These are just a few
examples of UCL opening its doors to
new forms of entrepreneurial activity.
35
12
Success
stories
Collaboration
Embedding
enterprise
Supporting
entrepreneurs
37
Success
stories
• The innovation edge
• Haemophilia A
• IDEALondon
• London Implant Retrieval Centre
• Nike+ FuelBand
• Passivhaus
• Tackling neurological disorders
Collaboration
Collaboration
IDEALondon – an innovation
‘hot-house’ established by
UCL and partners Cisco and
DC Thomson. Brought about
by UCL Advances, it was
launched by Prime Minister
David Cameron.
36,000
talented people
With a community of around 36,000 talented
people, from academics and students to
support staff, close working relationships are
a way of life at UCL.
Our collaborations range from
straightforward funded studentships
through to multimillion pound
research collaborations with partners
from high tech small and medium
enterprises to some of the largest
multi-national companies in the world.
Successful collaborations come to
us from every faculty and school
within the university, and, of course,
through the impressive work of UCL
Advances, UCL Business (UCLB) and
UCL Consultants Ltd.
Our collaborative principles in
practice match us with some
of the world’s best known
names – whether they be
brand-leading businesses
or internationally renowned
research bodies.
The London Implant Retrieval
Centre (LIRC) – set up with the
British Orthopaedic Association
to study replacement implants, it
now works with nine orthopaedic
manufacturers, 20 orthopaedic
hospitals, 192 UK-based
surgeons and surgeons from
22 other countries.
Consulting with experts
Some of the most striking
examples of our partnership
approach include:
Collaboration
Consulting with experts
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
UCL Faculty
of Brain
Sciences
The Therapeutic Innovation
Group (TIG) – a strategic
alliance formed with
Eisai for the discovery
and development of
novel therapeutic agents
for the treatment of
neurological diseases.
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
Nike+ FuelBand – UCL
Consultants matched the
university’s expertise in
spatial analysis and passion
for walking to develop
and produce an accurate
walkable London Tube map.
Other collaborative projects
have ranged from a detailed
study of London’s first
PassivHaus through UCL
Consultants to a potentially
world changing partnership
between UCL and BioMarin for
a new gene therapy programme
for haemophilia A, established
by UCL Business.
41
Consulting with experts
The
innovation
edge
© 2013 Dyson
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
In a highly competitive world, companies are
striving to gain an edge, especially in the design,
manufacture and market of high-end consumer
durables, where smart innovation can make a
tangible difference to market share and profitability.
This is why Dyson – considered to be
at the forefront of innovation – signed
its first collaborative agreement with
UCL in April 2013. This will allow the
university and the company to work
in partnership, drawing on multidisciplinary strengths in technology
and design innovation, engineering,
research and training.
Building a multi-disciplinary
partnership
Since the spring, several projects
have been established which engage
with many of the university’s research
groups in Chemistry and Engineering,
and which draw on expertise or
support from UCL Business (UCLB)
and UCL Consultants Ltd.
Creative engagement
Of particular interest to the Dyson
team is UCL’s focus on ideas and
innovation, which are then rapidly
tested and trialled in laboratories or in
test beds such as UCL Engineering’s
Institute of Making, which describes
itself as ‘a cross-disciplinary research
club for those interested in the made
world: from makers of molecules to
makers of buildings, synthetic skin to
spacecraft, soup to diamonds, socks
to cities.’
Added value
An unexpected outcome of the
UCL-Dyson collaboration has been
a growing relationship between
UCL, Dyson and the National
Trust, understanding how dust
affects historic properties and
furnishings, and how cleaning
technologies might be more
effective in preserving the past.
A collaboration like the one between
UCL and Dyson, driven by ideas and
innovation, will lead to more informed
technology and design, and ultimately
to breakthrough products, which will
make a dramatic improvement to the
way we live.
Collaboration
UCL Faculty
of Medical
Sciences
“It is a pleasure working with a great
UK company on technology and
design innovation. These kinds
of partnerships are an invaluable
contribution to the country’s
economy, bringing universities,
companies and national institutions
together, to work on challenges
which need more than one
discipline to solve.”
Anna Clark, Director of Corporate
Partnerships, UCL
43
Life-saving treatment
for haemophilia A
licensed to global
biotech
Collaboration
UCL Faculty
of Medical
Sciences
Haemophilia A is a life-threatening and
inherited condition that affects the blood’s ability
to clot. It can lead to spontaneous bleeding and
bleeding following injuries or surgery.
According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC),
haemophilia occurs in about 1
of every 5,000 male births in the
USA alone, with the A type being
some four times more common
than haemophilia B. Clearly, the
number of sufferers world wide is
considerable, the condition crossing
all racial and ethnic groups.
However, in an exciting development
in February 2013, UCL Business
(UCLB) concluded a licensing
agreement with global biotechnology
company BioMarin for a new
gene therapy programme for
haemophilia A. This paves the
way for a potentially life-saving
treatment becoming available.
Collaboration leads to
groundbreaking treatment
The innovative treatment, described
as ‘groundbreaking’ by Cengiz
Tarhan, UCLB’s Managing Director,
has been developed by Professor
Amit Nathwani of the UCL Cancer
Institute and Director of the Katharine
Dormandy Haemophilia Centre and
Thrombosis Unit at the Royal Free
London NHS Foundation Trust.
Professor Nathwani and his team
worked in partnership with the
Thrombosis Research Institute
in the UK and St Jude Children’s
Research Hospital in the USA.
Foundation Trust before reporting in
the New England Journal of Medicine,
in December 2011, positive results in
six haemophilia B patients for the first
time ever.
USA-based BioMarin is a global
midsize biotechnology company
which develops first-to-market
or best-in-class therapies for
patients suffering from serious
or rare diseases and medical
conditions that have a clear
underlying genetic defect.
This groundbreaking work at UCL
paved the way for the licensed
Factor VIII gene therapy treatment for
haemophilia A.
A successful therapy, from B to A
Professor Nathwani and his team first
developed a gene therapy expression
cassette for haemophilia B while at St
Jude Children’s Research Hospital,
carrying out the initial clinical trial
at the Royal Free London NHS
The license terms include significant,
upfront developmental milestone
and sales-related royalty payments
to UCL, as well as support
funding for a Phase one clinical
trial to be performed at the Royal
Free London NHS Foundation
Trust. The preclinical work, which
provided safety data, was funded
by a Medical Research Council
Developmental Pathway Funding
Scheme grant to Professor Nathwani.
“This is an excellent partnership for UCLB, which
combines the world-class translational research
strengths of Professor Nathwani and his team with
the significant development and commercialisation
capabilities of BioMarin to progress this
groundbreaking therapy for haemophilia A.”
Cengiz Tarhan, Managing Director, UCL Business Plc
IDEALondon
What’s the
big IDEA?
Collaboration
The Innovation and Digital Enterprise Alliance
London (better known as IDEALondon)
has been created to give digital and media
startups a boost.
It is not just another co-working
facility or talking shop. Rather, it is
a place where young businesses
can come to get the best available
support in taking their enterprise to
the next level, with fully connected
office facilities, business acceleration,
mentoring and support programmes,
and a wide variety of digital expertise
to help build the successful
businesses of the future.
Launched by Prime Minister David
Cameron in December 2012, in
London’s Tech City, IDEALondon is
an innovation ‘hot-house’ established
by UCL and partners Cisco and DC
Thomson. The Prime Minister said,
“The presence of a globally renowned
research university, together with a
technology giant and a leading global
publishing firm will further boost Tech
City and will help us to compete and
thrive in the global race.”
A multimillion pound investment
The three partners have invested
over £3.5m in the facility and
IDEALondon will offer around 25
digital start-ups access to UCL’s
centre for entrepreneurship and
business interaction, UCL Advances.
In addition, UCL researchers will
work from IDEALondon, drawing on
UCL’s existing world-leading research
excellence to develop innovative new
digital products and services.
It will also offer links to Cisco UK’s
National Virtual Incubator (NVI)
network enterprise stimulator and
DC Thomson’s second enterprise
enhancing facility in Dundee.
A practical opportunity to prove
an idea works
IDEALondon is just one of a number
of initiatives by UCL generally, and
UCL Advances specifically, that don’t
just promote entrepreneurship but
gives the would-be business leaders
of tomorrow a place to create and
validate their models, products
and services. Others include UCL
DECIDE, the world’s largest ‘living
lab’ of digital and media products
and LaunchBox, a pop-up shop in
Shoreditch to showcase the hottest
new innovations from the institution’s
students.
Professor Stephen Caddick, ViceProvost (Enterprise) at UCL and
a member of the Government’s
Tech City Advisory Group, said,
“The tech community has said
Tech City needs a firm commitment
from a world-leading university to
provide an academic heartbeat
– providing research to exploit
education in business skills and
a supply of talent in the form of
highly educated graduates –
and UCL provides all three.”
“We are unaware of any other facility in the world
that mirrors what we have done in IDEALondon to
enhance innovation and entrepreneurship. One
of the most satisfying aspects of the journey has
been learning about our partners in this creative
collaboration.”
Timothy Barnes, Director, UCL Enterprise Operations and UCL Advances
45
London Implant
Retrieval Centre
shapes the future
of hip replacement
surgery
Consulting with experts
Collaboration
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
An estimated 1.5 million Metal on Metal (MOM)
hip replacements have been made across the
world, with around a million of these having been
undertaken since 1997, and some 100,000 in the
UK alone.
A failure in a MOM hip replacement
means pain for the recipient, who
may require further surgery, and
expense for the healthcare providers
concerned.
In 2008, with funding from the British
Orthopaedic Association, the London
Implant Retrieval Centre (LIRC) was
successfully founded. Concerned
at how little analysis of MOM hip
replacement failure had been
undertaken, the new organisation
combined the research expertise
of a number of organisations and
specialists including:
• Biomedical engineer Professor
Gordon Blunn of UCL.
• Professor Alister Hart, Consultant
Orthopaedic surgeon at the Royal
National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS
Trust (RNOH).
• John Skinner of RNOH.
Many experts, one goal
The aim was to unravel the
complicated relationship between
surgical positioning, implant design
and patient factors which may be
responsible for the good or poor
performance of hip implants. As a
result, the LIRC became responsible
for designing, implementing and
managing the first global retrieval
program for medical implants.
“It was gratifying to assist in furthering
the work of an organisation to
undertake such important and
internationally significant work. This
ongoing project involves a diverse
range of participants, from patients
and surgeons to manufacturers and
lawyers” said Cameron Logan of UCL
Consultants Ltd.
Indeed, the LIRC was founded on
collaboration and inclusion. Today
it benefits from an international
network, including a consortium of
nine orthopaedic manufacturers, 20
orthopaedic hospitals and regular
receipts of hip implants from 192 UK
surgeons, as well as surgeons from
22 other countries based on every
continent. To date, the LIRC has
received some 4,700 implants.
Leading
from the front
The LIRC is at the leading edge
when it comes to understanding
how to improve clinical outcomes
for patients undergoing hip
replacements, resulting in a
number of major achievements and
breakthroughs. This has included
the publishing of more than 40
papers and presenting at more than
40 meetings across the globe.
Genuinely game-changing
The LIRC’s work has covered a
wide range of topics, from corrosion
to blood metal ions, while the
insight gained has enabled it to
drive changes to the regulation of
medical devices in the USA, UK and
elsewhere.
The organsation’s new protocols
for retrieval, detection and best
practices for surgeons and implant
manufacturing industries have, and
will, benefit the millions of patients
who receive MOM hips worldwide.
In short, the LIRC has improved
standards, clinical management,
monitoring, safety and patient care.
NikeFuel
Map
London
Nike+
FuelBand
Collaboration
Consulting with experts
UCL experts collaborate with Nike to tackle
lowering emissions and inspiring exercise.
Healthier people, healthier planet
Any new idea that encourages people
to get up and go by foot, rather than
getting up and jumping into the car or
onto the tube, has got to be good for
the individual and the environment.
So when Nike were looking for innovative ways to promote the Nike+
FuelBand – an activity tracker worn
on the wrist to enable users to record
their physical activity, steps taken
daily, and amount of calories burned
– they turned to the experts at UCL.
UCL team do the legwork
UCL Consultants Ltd brought in
UCL’s Dr James Cheshire and Oliver
O’Brien at the UCL Bartlett Centre for
Advanced Spatial Analysis, as well as
UCL ‘Urbanist’, researcher and keen
walker, John Bingham-Hall. They
designed and implemented a project
to produce a ‘walkable London Tube
map’ to assist Nike in the promotion
of FuelBand and the benefits of
tracking physical activity. The aim was
to recruit new ‘Fuel Bandits’ to the
good cause of exercise.
To start with, John walked the routes
between TfL’s Zone 1 Underground
stations – noting the kind of wonderful
scenic diversions you would miss if
you took the train rather than taking
to your feet – to gather the base
information.
By wearing the Nike+ FuelBand as
he walked – which utilises smart
sensors and complex algorithms to
measure how much he moved – he
was able to measure distances.
James and Oliver then crunched
John’s numbers and converted them
into the data needed for cartography.
Last but far from least, the results
were turned into an aesthetically
pleasing map by designer and
visualiser, David Luepschen.
A copy of this new spin on the world
famous London Underground map
can be downloaded at
www.nike.com/fuelband, while a
pocket-sized version is also available
in leading London Nike stores.
So now if visitors, commuters or
residents want an active way of
getting around the capital, they can
vote with their feet, thanks to the work
of specialists and enthusiasts at UCL
and the Nike FuelBand.
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
“The key thing was
to try and get as
much information as
possible on the Nike
fuel points between
London underground
stations by walking the
routes between the
stations and different
tube lines. In that way,
people could easily
look at it and say,
‘Right I normally take
the Northern Line to
work – maybe I could
walk some or all of the
journey.’”
Dr James Cheshire, Lecturer,
Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial
Analysis, UCL
47
UCL helps to
evaluate London’s
first Passivhaus
Collaboration
Consulting with experts
UCL Bartlett
Faculty of
the Built
Environment
Climate change and spiralling energy costs have
made saving energy to help save money and,
quite possibly, the planet, imperative – which
makes UCL’s involvement in the deep building
performance evaluation (BPE) study on London’s
first Passivhaus in Camden all the more timely.
A warm welcome from Passivhaus
Passivhaus is the gold standard
for ultra-low energy homes. It was
developed in Germany in the early
90s by Bo Adamson and Wolfgang
Feist. The Passivhaus Standard
means homes should be able to
remain at a comfortable ambient
temperature of around 20C with a
minimal amount of heating or cooling.
UCL and other external consultants
to analyse the post-construction
performance of the building, with
the occupants in residence. The
aim was to achieve a comfortable
and healthy home for the family
while minimising its energy use,
lowering bills and delivering a
healthier indoor air quality.
It is a “fabric-first” approach to energy
efficiency so the building does the
work, rather than relying on bolton renewable energy devices, like
solar panels and ground-source
heat-pumps. Super-high insulation,
absolute air-tightness and harvesting
the sun’s energy through southfacing windows, all help the building
to retain as much heat as possible.
Building Performance Evaluation
During the BPE study Phase 1 the
fabric and services were extensively
tested, while in Phase 2 a detailed
monitoring plan was utilised to assess
the energy consumption and building
services systems’ performance.
Funded by the Technology Strategy
Board (TSB), the Bere Architects’
study team worked closely with
The UCL team included Dr. Ian
Ridley (UCL/RMIT) who published
several papers on the energy
performance and the comfort in
the house, plus Dr. Stephanie
Gauthier and Dr. Hector Altamirano
Medina who organised interviews
with the occupants to evaluate their
satisfaction with the building.
The study showed that:
• the total yearly gas and electricity
consumption of the Camden
Passivhaus compares very
favourably with similar projects
across the UK
• the pre-fabricated timber frame
buildings can achieve exemplary
low heat loss levels
• the Passivhaus design appears to
be robust enough to achieve low
energy consumption, and
• the Passivhaus Planning
Package (PHPP) proved to
be a good design tool.
Cameron Logan of UCL Consultants
Ltd – who helped negotiate the
terms of the study – commented:
“Designing and building sustainable
homes is one of the pivotal issues
facing society. If the knowledge
gathered through this study can
encourage a step change in the
industry, then homes which combine
energy efficiency with high levels of
comfort could become the norm.”
UCL Faculty
of Brain
Sciences
A new force
in tackling
neurological
disorders
UCL Faculty of
Mathematical
and Physical
Sciences
Collaboration
UCL Faculty
of Life
Sciences
Neurological disorders such as
Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are among the
most pressing problems facing the world’s
health providers.
While there are no known cures for
either condition, ageing populations
– especially in the industrialised world
– mean the numbers of sufferers are
predicted to continue increasing.
It’s against this background that in
December 2012 UCL and the global
pharmaceutical company Eisai
formed a major strategic alliance
with the aim of discovering and
developing novel therapeutic agents
for the treatment of such neurological
diseases and other related disorders.
Led by the Industrial Partnerships
arm of UCL’s Translational Research
Office and senior Eisai Open
Innovation Directors, the alliance has
brought together complementary
research expertise from both
organisations in a groundbreaking,
new approach to industry-academia
collaboration – the Therapeutic
Innovation Group (TIG).
Comprising experienced scientists
from UCL and Eisai working
closely together, the main
goals for the TIG are to identify and
validate novel biological targets
for drug intervention, and then
to develop drugs that modulate
those targets and evaluate them
in proof-of-concept clinical trials.
Different strengths, the same goal
UCL delivers world-class early
stage translational research into
neurodegenerative disease,
while Eisai provides drug
discovery and development
resources and know-how.
In addition, Eisai has extensive
clinical and regulatory experience
through its successful drug launches
of neurological medicines and will
work closely with scientists and
clinicians at UCL’s new Leonard
Wolfson Experimental Neurology
Centre, in to which it has also
generously contributed £1.25m to
support a PhD clinical fellowship
programme in neurodegeneration.
Building for the future on the firm
foundations of the past
This alliance offers an exciting
opportunity to enhance the already
substantial history and close
relationship between UCL and
Eisai. It also forms a major part of
Eisai’s Open Innovation initiative
and UCL’s wider Enterprise Strategy
to explore external ideas and
paths to drug discovery through
increasing partnership activity.
“This is a unique and
innovative partnership
which we have taken
care and time to
establish such that
it will provide a truly
enabling platform for
joint working. I am sure
that this model will be
seen as an exemplar
and will be highly
productive.”
Professor Alan Thompson, Dean,
Faculty of Brain Sciences, UCL
49
• Driving down cost
• Tackling global issues
Embedding
enterprise
Success
stories
Embedding
enterprise
With enterprise part of the DNA at UCL, each
of our faculties has a Vice-Dean (Enterprise)
ably supported by a central Enterprise Steering
Committee and each School’s Knowledge
Transfer and Enterprise Board.
Our commitment, passion and
focus is to develop enterprise
right across the university.
Our enterprise and knowledge
transfer champions work closely with
heads of departments, academic
staff and heads of UCL Enterprise,
UCL Advances, UCL Business
(UCLB) and UCL Consultants Ltd to
enhance the entrepreneurial spirit
across the institution and beyond into
businesses of every size, government
departments and the third sector.
The aim is to convert the great work
of UCL into useful applications
for the benefit of wider society.
This collective catalyst for
enterprise has involved UCL and
its talented student and academic
communities in an exciting range
of initiatives and projects.
These number in their hundreds
and range from a pop-up shop
in Shoreditch, the CleanTech
Challenge and research into Metal
on Metal (MOM) hip replacement
implants to studies into neurological
disorders such as Alzheimer’s and
Parkinson’s, a new gene therapy
programme for haemophilia A
and a partnership for ideas and
innovation struck with leading
consumer electronics brand, Dyson.
We’re proud to say this
outstanding effort has resulted
in increases in funding for UCL,
which can only benefit our
continued drive for enterprise.
For example, UCL received a financial
boost from the Higher Education
Innovation Fund (HEIF); a major
award from the Engineering and
Physical Sciences
Research Council
(EPSRC) and
Impact Awards
from the
Biotechnology
and Biological
Sciences Research
Council (BBSRC)
and the Natural
Environment
Research Council
(NERC). UCL was also
the largest recipient
of translational funding
from both the Medical
Research Council (MRC)
and the Wellcome Trust.
Embedding
enterprise
Consulting with experts
53
Driving down
cost to accelerate
adoption of a key
technology
TEM image of
Amalyst’s low-cost,
high-performance
fuel cell and water
electrolysed
catalyst
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
With global warming and dwindling natural
resources driving the search for alternative, clean,
renewable and sustainable energy sources, the
future for fuel cells looks bright indeed.
In fact, fuel cells, which work by
converting the chemical energy
from a fuel such as hydrogen into
electricity through a chemical reaction
with oxygen to leave only water as a
waste product, could be powering up
to 560 million cars by 2050 – that’s
a third of the world’s total. Moreover,
applications for fuel cells go way
beyond the automotive sector.
Then – high cost, low take up
The electrode catalysts currently
employed in proton exchange
membrane (PEM) fuel cells and
water electrolysers are primarily
comprised of large amounts of
platinum and platinum-based alloys.
Platinum, as a precious
metal, is very expensive and
consequently the electrode cost
has a large contribution to the
total cost of the fuel cell. The
result is low adoption rates.
Embedding
enterprise
In response to the global demand
for a low-cost catalyst that is a
‘drop-in’ substitute for platinum,
Amalyst Ltd was spun out from UCL’s
Department of Chemical Engineering
in Autumn 2012 to take to market
novel low-cost electrocatalyst
materials. The company secured
seed investment from UCL Business
(UCLB) and Midven in May 2013,
together with support from the
Technology Strategy Board.
Now – high performance,
lower cost
Amalyst’s catalysts are high
performance but lower cost than
platinum and the company is
the first to spin-out from UCL’s
Electrochemical Innovation Lab (EIL),
a technology accelerator based
in UCL’s Chemical Engineering
department. The EIL was launched
in 2010 as a collaboration between
UCL’s Centre for CO2 Technology,
UCLB and external partners to
pool intellectual property (IP).
Dr Tim Fishlock, Senior Business
Manager, UCLB, commented,
“Amalyst provides clear evidence
that innovative collaboration
mechanisms like the EIL have an
important role to play in accelerating
the commercial exploitation of
university IP. Through the pooling
of IP and the convergence of key
commercial and technical expertise,
it addresses a very real roadblock in
the commercialisation of a range of
technologies critical for the near term
realisation of the hydrogen economy.”
“Interest from potential customers
in the cost advantages of the UCL
catalyst played a major part in the
decision to exploit this opportunity
via a spin-out company. The EILled research has established a
materials platform for hydrogen
technologies that is now poised for
commercial growth and the team
assembled to develop Amalyst is
excited by the opportunity,” added
Dave Hodgson, CEO, Amalyst Ltd.
A three-pronged
attack on the
most challenging
global issues
Embedding
enterprise
Birkbeck Centre
for Innovation
Management
Research
(c) Birkbeck Media Services Centre 2013 Photographer: Dominic Mifsud, Birkbeck MSC
Today the global economy faces a number of
challenges as the old certainties disappear
and new realities kick in.
These challenges range from
rising unemployment, particularly
amongst the young; low or no
growth; spiralling healthcare
needs and ageing populations to
digital business models evolving
by the moment and unsustainable
changes to the environment.
Helix enable institutions such as
UCL to demonstrate the clear
benefits we deliver for wider society
– especially when we work closely
with business and government
– in return for the funding we
receive from the public purse.”
Never has the need for universities,
businesses and governments to
work together been more acute.
Right at the top of the agenda
The conference addressed the key
question, ‘How can the Triple Helix
approach build ‘the enterprising state’
in which universities, businesses and
governments co-innovate to solve
the global economic challenges?’
It’s to address some of these
urgent challenges that the 2013
Triple Helix Conference was held in
the summer and hosted by UCL,
Birkbeck, University of London
and the Big Innovation Centre – an
initiative of The Work Foundation
and Lancaster University.
Gurpreet Jagpal, Deputy Director,
UCL Advances, who undertook much
of the day-to-day arrangement and
management of the conference on
behalf of the university commented,
“High-profile initiatives like Triple
This initiative-packed event enjoyed
a presentation by David Willetts,
Minister of State for Universities
and Science; a session chaired by
Timothy Barnes, Director of UCL
Advances – the University’s centre
for entrepreneurship and business
interaction – and a keynote address
from Will Hutton, Chair of the Big
Innovation Centre, on the importance
of the Triple Helix principles in driving
innovation between governments,
universities and business.
An impressive 150 plus papers
were presented by academics
and professional practitioners
throughout the three days of the
conference, addressing some of
the most pressing economic, social
and technological challenges we
face, from innovation in healthcare
to enhancing productivity to skills.
“Closer collaboration between
universities, business and
government is vital for driving
the sustainable growth of the
British economy,” said Professor
Stephen Caddick, Vice-Provost
(Enterprise) at UCL, who spoke at
the conference. “UCL is committed
to the Triple Helix approach
and has particular successes in
healthcare and technology.”
Gurpreet added, “This collaborative
approach to an ideas and innovation
exchange will help us to address
some of the key issues facing
the world economy. It’s through
initiatives like Triple Helix that we
can share proven best practice
and drive tangible change.”
55
Success
stories
Supporting
entrepreneurs
• World’s largest living
• Fashion future
• Toddlers’ tastes
lab
57
Supporting
entrepreneurs
Enterprise is the lifeblood of the nation. The
entrepreneurial spirit creates businesses, wealth
and employment – plus much more besides.
UCL continues to be a beacon
amongst the higher education
institutions, and well beyond, for
supporting the many entrepreneurs
in our student and academic bodies.
In the past year, our commitment to
enterprise has grown substantially
again, resulting in over 45,000
student learner hours being delivered
to our budding entrepreneurs in 2013.
UCL Advances, for example, has
supported over 200 new business
ideas, as we continue to drive
toward our target of supporting 500
businesses by the end of 2015.
In fact, the scope of UCL Advances’
recent activities has been impressive,
from game-changing initiatives like
IDEALondon (founded with partners
Cisco and DC Thomson) and DECIDE
(the world’s largest ‘living lab’ for
entrepreneurs to test and validate new
tech and media ideas) to supporting
and enhancing UCL-originated
SMEs such as Fox Hunt in the highly
competitive high-end fashion sector.
UCL Business (UCLB) has also been
highly proactive this year, particularly
in the health sector, working with a
wide range of partners in support of
high-value spin-out companies and
to protect, commercialise and license
our intellectual property (IP) across
a broad range of initiatives. Just one
example is Tiny Tastes, a simple
and practical way to help parents
help their children to a healthier diet,
which was developed by the UCL
Health Behaviour Research Centre.
UCLB has around 140 new
ideas in the pipeline, so the
next 12 months could be even
more rewarding than the last.
UCL Consultants Ltd, too, have
had an exciting 12 months – with
the arrival of a new director – and
perhaps their most diverse year ever,
as a conduit between the renowned
entrepreneurial and academic
expertise of the university and
organisations of every shape and
size. The team has worked with an
incredible range of names like Nike,
L’Oréal and the London Implant
Retrieval Centre (LIRC), and in areas
as varied as space exploration
and devising new top-level domain
names for the world wide web.
Supporting
entrepreneurs
FOXHUNT
BRITAIN
Consulting with experts
59
The world’s largest
‘living lab’ for tech
and media startups goes live
Having an idea for a digital or media enterprise
is one thing, putting that idea to the test is
quite another.
In fact, perfecting and validating
an innovative product, service
or entire business model can be
expensive and time-consuming.
Even then, typical market
research can be an untrustworthy
barometer of future success.
That’s why UCL, along with
partners in the technology and
media industries, has launched
a new service for digital and
media start-ups – UCL DECIDE
(Digital Enterprise: Collaboration
Innovation, Development and
Evaluation). This is intended to be
the world’s largest ‘living lab’ for
entrepreneurs, numbering around
36,000 people in its community.
Even the largest of today’s
technology enterprises only have test
bases of around 1,000 people, so
UCL DECIDE users have an unrivalled
and invaluable resource to leverage.
Partners in enterprise
UCL DECIDE is supported by
UCL together with Virgin Media,
HEFCE and Fujitsu, and will partner
with leading global businesses
including the BBC to provide
media content and leading
technology firm ATOS to provide
critical technical infrastructure.
In addition, DC Thomson and
the Technology Strategy Board
(TSB) have endorsed the need for
such a service and are intending
to work with the partners.
To launch the ‘lab’, UCL will develop
a closed university-only app store
so that small and medium sized
enterprises (SMEs) will be able to
test apps with staff and students and
act on their feedback – giving them a
better chance of success when they
are released into the marketplace.
Supporting
entrepreneurs
Access to a unique
national resource
The BBC will also provide access
to a treasure trove of archive
material for SMEs developing
digital technology. Exciting new
services should be the result.
A small version of the living lab
approach has already been piloted
and proven in practice by TipGain,
a peer-based social marketing
service set up by former UCL
students and supported by UCL
Advances. TipGain has been signed
up by London restaurant chain
Busaba Eathai and a number of
local sporting goods retailers.
Commenting on this unique initiative,
Timothy Barnes, the Director of
UCL Advances, said, “It’s no mean
feat building the world’s largest
living lab across a community of
around 36,000 people. DECIDE is
destined to become a key national
asset, giving UK small businesses
a vital edge in a fiercely competitive
globalised world. UCL DECIDE
will enable a new generation of
digital entrepreneurs to hone their
products for worldwide success.”
Engineering a
future in a fashion
enterprise
UCL Faculty
of Engineering
Sciences
Supporting
entrepreneurs
FOXHUNT
BRITAIN
It’s not easy for any young designer to get a
break in the highly competitive fashion sector,
especially not a second year Civil Engineering
undergraduate from UCL.
However, Julija Bainiaksinaite, who
has recently started her own line in
bespoke, one-off knitwear for men,
had a few clear advantages. These
include her undoubted talent, the
fact that she grew up in a family
that ran a knitwear business and
the support of UCL Advances.
A guiding light for entrepreneurs
UCL Advances, the university’s centre
for entrepreneurship and business
interaction, supports anyone who
wants to learn about, start or grow a
business through training, services
and funding. It’s a pioneer among
UK universities and is a key part
of UCL Enterprise’s activities.
With the help of LaunchBox, a UCL
Advances initiative and pop-up shop
in Shoreditch, Julija has been able to
not just showcase her capability and
her creations, but prove that what
she does works in the real world,
attracting interest and custom.
In fact, her creations have already
been selected for two London
boutique stores and have been
featured in the Mail on Sunday.
Ideas and innovation are inherent
in all that’s done at UCL
Timothy Barnes, Director, UCL
Advances says of Julija’s success,
“When people think about UCL,
they probably think first about the
university’s world-wide renown in
science, engineering or medicine. If
they think about UCL and creativity,
they probably think first about
the Slade School or the Bartlett.
But the UCL Advances team is
passionate about harnessing
and validating creativity and
entrepreneurship wherever it occurs.
In Julija’s case that’s helping a civil
engineering student take her first
steps into the highly competitive
high-end fashion space.”
Julija has a practical head on her
shoulders, choosing not to pursue
a formal design education or to
obtain a degree in fashion. Instead,
she believes people can learn
the necessary design techniques
through practice rather than through
study. So she opted for engineering,
which she describes as being
more “practical and useful.”
Julija’s designs and business model
react against today’s culture of
High Street mass production and
quick fixes. FoxHunt’s ethos is
one of individuality and quality,
of bespoke garments. Like Julija
herself – and UCL Advances – each
piece from FoxHunt is unique.
61
It’s not easy to
encourage children
to eat what’s good
for them. Just ask
any parent.
Supporting
entrepreneurs
UCL Faculty
of Population
Health
Sciences
Parents, who are aware of the importance of fruit
and vegetables in a healthy diet, can struggle to
persuade their children to eat sufficient quantities
of the them.
As a result, children in the UK are
still failing to meet the recommended
levels of fruit and vegetable intake,
with the latest figures suggesting that
only 19% of boys and 20% of girls
manage to eat five portions a day.*
Even picky eaters pick Tiny Tastes
Tiny Tastes is a simple and practical
way to help parents help their
children to eat a healthier diet.
It is a simple, affordable tasting
game developed by Dr Lucy Cooke
and is the outcome of over 10
years research carried out by the
UCL Health Behaviour Research
Centre in the Department of
Epidemiology and Public Health.
It is, moreover, enjoyable and
practical, persuading even the most
reluctant eaters to attempt new
foods – especially vegetables.
Children try a small piece of an
unfamiliar vegetable and are
then rewarded with a colourful
sticker. Research carried out by
the centre has shown that, after
tasting a new vegetable at least
ten times, even the most reluctant
children tend to like it more.
A new partnership for
healthy eating
The UCL entrepreneurs have now
joined forces with the charity Weight
Concern (www.weightconcern.org.uk)
to roll out Tiny Tastes to more parents
and children. UCL Business (UCLB)
is providing business planning
support and contractual advice.
Parents
are
positive
about Tiny
Tastes,
praising its
simplicity;
saying it has
helped change
mealtimes from
a battleground to
an enjoyable time for
the family. Researchers
confirm that the gains are
also long-term, with benefits seen
immediately post intervention
maintained at three-month follow-up.
*Statistics on obesity, physical activity and diet: England, 2012’. Source: The Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2012. Link
http://www.aso.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/03/2012-Statistics-on-Obesity-Physical-Activity-and-Diet-England.pdf
Supporting
entrepreneurs
“Tiny Tastes is an evidencebased resource for parents
the potential to create
positive impact in society by
encouraging healthy eating
and improving the diet of
young children. UCLB is
supporting the team to achieve
wider adoption of Tiny Tastes
through business development
activities, with the objective
of delivering an enhanced
translational outcome for UCL.”
Ana Lemmo Charnalia, Business Manager,
Social Enterprise, UCL Business Plc
63
Activity
reports
Our year in
the media
• Impact
through
publicity
65
Impact
through
publicity
UCL Enterprise understands the importance of the impact
through publicity and the value in communicating the
difference it makes to entrepreneurship – across the globe.
This past year’s highlights have
included:
• UCL achieving more coverage for
enterprise than any other higher
education institution in the UK
over the last six months by our
measures, with a good spread
across local, national, specialist
and online outlets. Over 100 items
of media coverage during the year
(August 2012 to July 2013 inclusive)
and number one for media
mentions in relation to business and
enterprise in the first two quarters of
2013, compared to other global top
ten British universities.
• UCL achieving a strong media
profile for UCL’s lead for Enterprise,
Professor Stephen Caddick –
notable for the sector. Over 200
tweets and retweets of comment
pieces written by Professor Stephen
Caddick over the year.
• UCL Enterprise achieving a good
spread of local coverage across
different areas of the country,
predominantly because of our
collaborative working with other
institutions and corporate partners.
• Collaborative working also
contributed to UCL’s strong
national presence in the media,
being mentioned in relation to
initiatives such as the Goldman
Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses
programme and the MTI investment
fund.
“Courses such as the MSc
Technology Entrepreneurship at
UCL are not about encouraging
people to start a business as
much as helping to develop
young entrepreneurs by exposing
them to what works and what
doesn’t. This helps them to grow
faster and makes them more likely
to succeed in the long run.”
Secretary of State for
Business, Innovation
and Skills, Vince
Cable, MSN News,
15 November 2012
“The UK’s scientists are some
of the most innovative and
creative people in the world,
but they need support to
take their best ideas through
to market. This could be by
establishing a successful,
technology-driven SME like
[UCL spin-out] Space Syntax.”
Enterprising
solutions to the
funding headache,
in the Independent i,
27 December 2012
Master’s course
give graduates
a degree of
entrepreneurship,
The Guardian, 5
March 2013
Top Award for
property sales
website in Pakistan,
Jersey Evening Post,
22 May 2013
“Most universities that invest in
technology transfer do so by
developing commercial applications
from scientific research and making
products for which there is a
profitable market. But University
College London (UCL) does things
differently. It attracts postgraduates
looking for professional help to build
technology businesses.”
“…the venture conceived
and developed by
23-year-old Tayab Hasan
could revolutionise buying
property in Pakistan for
people in the UK and in
the country itself.”
Eisai signs
neuroscience
alliance with UCL,
Pharma Times,
13 December 2012
“Eisai is setting up a ‘major drug
discovery and development
collaboration’ with University
College London focusing on
neurological diseases such as
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other
related disorders. The partners say
that this will be the first time that
joint research is to be conducted
by a partnership involving a
public institution in the UK and a
pharmaceutical company.”
Rajeeb Dey, Goldman
Sachs 10,000
Small Businesses
programme
participant, in the
Independent i,
16 May 2013
“The Goldman Sachs
course is one of the most
useful things I’ve ever
done. I’ve always learnt
on the job and it’s been
a rollercoaster journey.
The course gave me the
opportunity to look at the
bigger picture.”
67
Impact
through
publicity
Private sector can help
small firms play bigger
role, Lord Helseltine
and Lloyd Blankfein,
The Daily Telegraph,
20 April 2013
“The [Goldman Sachs 10,000
Small Businesses] programme
is tailored and delivered by local
experts such as Aston Business
School and University College
London. By tapping in to
existing regional networks and
working with local partners, the
programme has supported the
building of local entrepreneurial
communities.”
Jack Wratten, manager
of Citrus Saturday, in
Citrus Saturday project
gives school pupils a
fizzy business start,
Camden New Journal,
27 June 2013
Four top start-up
tech companies
on silicon
roundabout,
City A.M.,
4 July 2013
“Shoreditch and Old Street
have turned into a tech hub
to rival California’s Silicon
Valley…Amazon has opened
a development centre
and Cisco, DC Thompson
and UCL are opening
similar schemes to support
companies in the area.”
“Some of the young
people who do the
scheme took their skills
for granted, and then
they can see how that
trait they were born
with can be honed and
translated into a career.”
London’s got
chemistry (biology
and physics too),
The Evening
Standard, 22 May
2013
So will London soon be able to
call itself the capital of science as
well? Professor Stephen Caddick,
the Vice-Provost [Enterprise] at
UCL, thinks so. “I would argue that
nowhere in the world has the mix
of top universities, the NHS and
an entrepreneurial community like
London,” he says, baptising the
capital a “super-cluster” of scientific
and technological innovation.
69
UCL Business
Award
Our year
in awards
UCL
Knowledge
Transfer
Business of
the Year
UCL Enterprise
Partner of the
Year
UCL
Consultants
Award
London
Entrepreneurs’
Challenge
Awards
UCL Social
Enterprise
Project of the
Year
UCL Best
Mentor Award
UCL
Bright Ideas
Awards
Activity
reports
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2013
UCL Best
Impact by
a Student
Consultancy
Project
UCL Provost’s
Spirit of
Enterprise
Award
71
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2013
UCL has announced its Awards for Enterprise
to recognise the achievements of students,
graduates and academic staff for furthering
enterprise and entrepreneurship on campus
with a ceremony held on the evening of
Tuesday, 14 May.
In their sixth year, the Awards
celebrate the exciting new business
ideas of student and graduate
entrepreneurs – ranging from Bebe
Mtoto!, a baby harnesses company,
to PhotoSynthesis, a company
whose business idea is clip-on
smartphone photo printers – as well
as showcasing the entrepreneurial
activities of staff and sector-leading
partnerships between UCL and the
business community.
UCL Corporate Enterprise
Partner of the Year
Following over 30 years of close
working, Cisco has been awarded
UCL Corporate Enterprise Partner
of the Year 2013, in particular
recognition of the role it has
recently played – along with media
company DC Thompson – in the
Innovation and Digital Enterprise
Alliance (IDEA), which agreed to
establish IDEALondon, an innovation
hothouse in Shoreditch, in December
last year.
Commenting on the award, Phil
Smith, CEO Cisco UK and Ireland
said, “UCL has been a great
collaborator with Cisco for many
years now, reaching from the very
earliest days of the internet through
to the recent prime ministerial
announcement of the IDEALCentre,
which we’re jointly launching with DC
Thomson and the university.”
Bright Ideas Awards for our
brightest entrepreneurs
The best and brightest student and
graduate entrepreneurs were also
recognised, with a total of £80,000
in funding provided as part of UCL’s
Bright Ideas Awards, designed to
support the development of new
businesses emerging from UCL.
The Bright Ideas Awards, first
“UCL is committed to supporting enterprise across
the university and in the wider world too, so it is
especially pleasing to make awards to Cisco,
HCP Social Infrastructure and PassivSystems –
partnerships which have all yielded great results
for UCL, the businesses themselves and the
community at large.”
Timothy Barnes, Director, UCL Enterprise Operations and UCL Advances
established in 2008, provide a
fund which is split 50/50 between
businesses led by undergraduate
students and those led by postgraduate and alumni students.
In addition, since last year an
additional loan pot is available for
awards to members of the MSc
Technology Entrepreneurship course
and for graduates from the last twelve
months who’ve started businesses on
graduation.
The successful applicants had to
supply a full business plan for their
idea, including specific details of
how the Bright Ideas funds would
be used to finance their business
development. They greatly benefited
from the input of UCL Student
Business Advisor Lillian Shapiro in
honing their plans. Those chosen
were selected because it was felt they
would benefit most from the money in
terms of expanding their businesses.
Awards for academic excellence
The Awards for Enterprise also saw
the successes of UCL’s academic
staff recognised, with an award
sponsored by UCL Business PLC
(UCLB) – the university’s
technology transfer company
– presented to Professor Pete
Coffey for his part in licensing to
Pfizer a treatment for age-related
macular degeneration.
UCL Consultants Ltd, offering
consultancy with the university’s
world-leading experts, presented their
award to Professor Polina Bayvel for
her work with Huawei Technologies
to develop high-speed optical
communication and networking.
Commenting on the Awards for
Enterprise, Director of UCL Enterprise
Operations and UCL Advances,
Timothy Barnes said, “This year we
have focused on interactivity as the
theme of the awards, in recognition
of the increasingly dynamic digital
innovation by entrepreneurs across
UCL, whether staff or students.”
“The calibre of UCL and the calibre of Cisco makes
for a great partnership – that’s been proven by
the length of the relationship and the fact we’re
continually innovating together.”
Phil Smith, CEO Cisco UK and Ireland
73
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2013
Professor of Optical
Communications
and Networks,
UCL Electronic and
Electrical Engineering
Professor
Polina
Bayvel
UCL Business Award
Professor Pete Coffey has been
given this award in recognition of his
efforts with the London Project – a
research programme that aims to
develop a cell therapy for Age-related
Macular Degeneration (AMD). It is
hoped that this will prevent blindness,
restore sight and improve sufferers’
quality of life. In particular, the award
recognises the work secured with
Pfizer to develop treatments for AMD.
Professor
Pete Coffey
UCL Consultants
Award
Professor Polina Bayvel is the head
of the Optical Networks Group in the
UCL Department of Electronic and
Electrical Engineering and has been
instrumental in working in partnership
with Huawei Technologies to explore
how to develop better high-speed
optical communications and solve
problems relating to computer
networking.
To date, funding of over £500,000
has come from Huawei to UCL. We
expect the UCL-Huawei collaboration
to grow from strength to strength,
helping to achieve UCL’s ambitions
in increasing knowledge transfer and
supporting Huawei’s RandD efforts in
next-generation optical systems.
Director of the London
Project to Cure Blindness
and Professor of Cellular
Therapy and Visual
Sciences, UCL Institute
of Ophthalmology
Louise Francis and
Professor Muki
Haklay, UCL Civil,
Environmental and
Geomatic Engineering
Mapping
for Change
UCL Social Enterprise
Project of the Year
Mapping for Change is one of the
first successful social enterprises
to emerge from the research and
community development, public
engagement projects conducted
at UCL.
Its vision is to promote a future in
which communities are empowered,
sustainable and resilient. People
involved can make a difference to
their local area through the use of
mapping and the applications of
geographical information.
They offer participatory mapping
services to voluntary, community and
business organisations, as well as
government bodies.
Mapping for Change has not only
demonstrated an innovative model
of social enterprise but also a brilliant
example of citizen science – science
by the people and for the people.
More importantly, by sharing their
experiences and knowledge,
Mapping for Change has inspired and
helped many UCL members of staff
and students and people outside the
university to take on the challenges
and opportunities of social enterprise
as an important way to contribute to
wider society.
Winners
Hywel Carver,
Mathematics
and Physics PhD
candidate, UCL and
Sam Jewell
Matopy
London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge Winner (UG)
Disepra solves the problem of
surgeons having to train by practising
on real patients.
It is a training organisation aiming
to globally revolutionise the way
laparoscopic appendicectomies
are taught. This will be done by
creating the world’s first scientifically
validated training curriculum for the
laparoscopic appendicectomy using
high-fidelity virtual reality simulation.
Disepra
Cameron Nichol,
Undergraduate Medical
Student, UCL and Elite
Athlete at GB Rowing
Team; Daniel Sinitsky,
General Surgeon, London
Deanery and Pasquale
Berlingieri, Gynaecologist,
Royal Free/UCL
London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge Winner (PG)
Matopy solves the problem of “eyesfree” access to any web content.
Matopy is a software company
which hopes to change the world by
revolutionising the way we interact
with the web.
Matopy creates audio versions
of websites, making it possible
to listen to and navigate around
large amounts of content online.
Their innovative and unique new
technology has the potential to
dramatically enhance the way we
experience audio on the internet.
This innovation has immediate
applications for anyone who wants
“eyes-free” access to any web
content – from blind and visually
impaired people, through those with
lower literacy levels to the many who
simply want to surf or check emails
while away from their desks. It’s time
to listen to the web.
Alex Siljanovski,
MSc Technology
Entrepreneurship,
UCL, September
2012 and Paul
Brown, BSc
BlueRonin
London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge Winner
(Alumni)
Apposite is a mobile (iPad) and webbased app, created by the company
BlueRonin set up by chartered
engineer Alex Siljanovski, which
solves the problem of abortive work
and wasted time on construction sites
due to out of date and out of synch
drawings.
Apposite is a solution that ensures
seamless synchronisation of the
latest revisions of drawings anywhere
in the world. It provides automatic
aggregation of comments and strict
version control, as well as delivering
searchable, faster, clearer detection
and resolution of major problems.
75
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2013
London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge Runner-Up
(UG)
Index Africana solves the problem of
a lack of reliable consumer behaviour
data in Africa.
This market research service extracts
information on consumer behaviours
and demographics on the continent
through the use of mobile technology.
This solution sends surveys to
consumers’ mobile phones, which
they then complete in return for
calling credit.
Index Africana’s data will be used
by market research organisations,
corporates, governments and NGOs
to access previously unavailable
information on the African continent.
London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge Runner-Up
(PG)
London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge Runner-Up
(Alumni)
People will no longer have to waste
the time and effort usually associated
with uploading items to individual
platforms manually, as SellPlex
automates the entire process and
facilitates inventory and inbox
management.
RehenSehen is an online platform
where home seekers can browse
properties as and when they come
onto the market. Each property’s
photographs and geographical
locations are provided so the
customer can determine what
homes are worth viewing before
they view, making it efficient
for buyer and seller alike.
SellPlex is changing the eCommerce
industry by providing sellers with
the ability to load items for sale onto
multiple platforms (such as eBay,
Amazon, Gumtree and Facebook
Marketplace) simultaneously and with
minimal effort.
Ahmad Bakhiet,
MSc Technology
Entrepreneurship
and Kishan Gupta,
Information Security
MSc, 2010/2011
Index
Africana
Wisdom Uzor,
Chemical
Engineering BSc,
Final year
SellPlex
RehenSehen solves the problem
of a lack of information for those
trying to find and evaluate the perfect
property in Pakistan.
Whilst such a service is readily
available in Europe and the US, this
is not currently the case in Pakistan,
due to various problems which
RehenSehen has now addressed.
RehenSehen
Tayab Hasan,
MSc Technology
Entrepreneurship,
September 2012
Goldsmid
Professor of
Mathematics,
UCL Mathematics
Madison
Salters,
SOAS
PhotoSynthesis
London Entrepreneurs’
Challenge Provost’s
Prize
PhotoSynthesis solves the problem
of how to share your digital photos
physically, as soon as you take them.
PhotoSynthesis is a lightweight,
innovative photo printer that clips on
to the back of your mobile phone and
prints wirelessly. The accompanying
mobile app enables users to
customise and upload photos for
real-time viewing.
It allows family photos to regain
a central role in people’s lives,
giving a physical presence to digital
photography and enhancing the
enjoyment of social photography
through photo customisation.
This solution enables people to
combine the process of photo-taking,
modification, digital sharing and
physical printing in one place and
one time – in the here and now.
Professor
Frank
Smith
UCL Provost’s Spirit of
Enterprise Award
Professor Frank Smith FRS is a
world-leading applied mathematician
who has engaged enthusiastically
and effectively with many industrial
partners during his career.
The range and depth of these
activities has been remarkable in
recent years, involving a variety of
partners (such as Buhler-Sortex,
QinetiQ, UK Sport, Unilever,
AeroTex, TotalSim and European
Office of Aerospace Research and
Development (EOARD)) covering a
wide range of applications (in foodsorting machines, aircraft safety,
Olympic sports performance and
shopping, for example).
Funding for research has come in
many forms such as the Council
for Advancement and Support of
Education (CASE) awards and the
Faraday and Knowledge Transfer
Network (KTN) partnerships. This
has provided a welcome boost in
PhD numbers in the department, as
well as forming a major part of UCL’s
Unit of Assessment 10 Research
Excellence Framework (UoA10 REF)
impact case studies.
HCP Social
Infrastructure
(UK) Ltd
UCL Small and
Medium Enterprise
Partner of the Year
Award
HCP Infrastructure has been
instrumental in driving forward Facility
Management Enterprise research
at UCL for many years. It is an SME
working in healthcare and education
infrastructure but the reach of the
company’s organisational supply
chain is widespread.
Through the company itself and its
partner organisations, HCP has been
responsible for several commercial
studentships, Engineering Doctorates
and two Knowledge Transfer
Partnerships (KTPs).
In addition to this, the business has
provided guest lecturers, acted as
ambassadors for UCL with overseas
guests and has spoken at the
“Bartlett Means Business” event, to
promote enterprise generally within
the faculty.
77
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2013
Silvina Paz
Cisco
UCL Corporate
Enterprise Partner of
the Year
UCL Best Mentor
Award
Silvina Paz has been selected as
winner for the UCL Best Mentor
award for her efforts with the four
companies that she has been
mentoring since she came on board
as a mentor in the summer of 2012.
Cisco is recognised for the length
– and breadth – of their relationship
with UCL. The partnership’s origins
lie with Professor Peter Kirstein in
Computer Science over 30 years ago
and that commitment is reflected
today by the efforts of Professor
Anthony Finkelstein, Dean of
Engineering.
Last year, Cisco launched an
International Internship Programme
at UCL, with high-level executive
support from within the company,
which gives an incredible fully-funded
opportunity to five undergraduate
students from UCL Engineering
each year. The students spend 12
months working at the company’s
headquarters in San Jose, California.
Our first five students impressed, so
this year and next Cisco wishes to
take 20.
UCL and Cisco have an increasingly
close corporate partnership,
developing the innovative ‘Future
Cities Centre’ with Imperial College
and discussing a range of research
collaborations.
Further developments have included
IDEALondon, an innovation ‘hot-
Silvina’s background is in finance
but she has also run her own
e-commerce business for over five
years and is currently on the board of
another small company based in the
mining sector. She is also in an angel
investment group.
house’ established by UCL, Cisco
and DC Thomson, and announced
by the Prime Minister last year. This
will be a physical base in the TechCity
area of London that will house and
support a variety of new technology
companies connected to UCL’s
research and the partners’ business
activities.
The companies that she has
mentored have all been in need of
assistance in either pitching for
finance or pitching to clients.
She has been very hands
on in helping to
develop and align
the business and
the pitch being
delivered,
ensuring
both have
a viable
strategy.
Another of
Silvina’s
key
strengths
Winners
Flat-Club
Consultancy
Team
is to
be able
to see the
big picture
and the small
details; as such, she is a
very reassuring ‘on call’ presence for
business owners.
All those she has mentored have
expressed how helpful she has
been. In some instances Silvina has
even introduced businesses to her
personal contacts in investment.
To demonstrate her real and
dedicated commitment to helping
businesses, she has recently taken
on her fourth enterprise – WishBomb.
UCL Best Impact by a
Student Consultancy
Project
Flat-Club is the world’s largest
network of alumni and students of
top universities looking for short
term accommodation. It helps hosts
and guests find people they trust
within their existing social networks,
enabling hosts to generate extra
income while away, while guests save
up to 80% of hotel prices.
Launched in November 2010, FlatClub quickly grew within a year from
five flats in London to 2,000 flats
worldwide and is already generating
revenues. As a proud member of the
London Business School Incubator,
the company employs 12 people from
10 nationalities.
The consultancy team undertook a
marketing strategy project to help
Flat-Club’s executive management
decide about the next phases of
growth. Working closely with the
Flat-Club’s CEO, the team analysed
the reasons that made the business
so successful in its first year, and how
to replicate that success in another
niche market.
Edward C Ling, BSc
Biochemistry
Charlotte Arlt, PhD Wolfson
Institute of Biomedical Research
Johannes Kunath, MSc
European Public Policy
Matej Orlicky, MA Digital
Humanities
Nicklas Carler, MSc Management
UCL Knowledge
Transfer Business of
the Year
PassivSystems was selected for
the successful interdisciplinary
collaborations they have established
across the university, as well as the
strong partnerships they have built
with the Energy Institute, Computer
Science and the UCL Interaction
Centre.
To date, this company has engaged
with the university through three KTPs
over a four year period.
And while there were other strong
contenders for the award, none
matched the impressive breadth
and depth of collaboration that
PassivSystems has with UCL.
PassivSystems
79
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2013
Dhrupad Karwa,
Economics BSc, Final
year; Andrew Leung,
Economics BSc, Final
year and Neer Sharma,
Economics BSc,
Final year
HaikuJAM
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (UG)
Bio-bean will recycle coffee grounds
into biodiesel and biomass pellets,
using a unique combination of three
existing ideas: waste collection,
biomass pellet production and
biodiesel production.
Bio-Bean
Arthur Kay,
Architecture BSc,
Final year and
Benjamin Harriman,
March 2012
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (UG)
HaikuJAM is a web and mobile
application through which people
write haiku poems together, using
photo-integration, competitions,
“gamification” and other features.
HaikuJAM provides creative people
with a dynamic and colourful digital
haiku writing platform.
Ian Campbell,
Management MSc,
Final year
Aero Forza
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (PG)
Aero Forza produces high
performance aerodynamically efficient
designs for the radio-controlled
car market, starting with aero
components and bodyshells and for
the 1/8th scale on-road models.
Winners
Raphaela Heussen,
CoMPLEX PhD,
Final year
David Greenberg,
Auditory
Neuroscience PhD,
Fourth year
Beba
Mtoto!
ComComm
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (PG)
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (PG)
Beba Mtoto!’s next generation carrier
will incorporate all the ergonomic
qualities and benefits associated
with babywearing, whilst making the
carriers easy enough to use to appeal
to the mass market.
By integrating voice-to-text software
within existing home and mobile
telecommunications hardware,
ComComm provides the deaf
and hard of hearing with access
to the cues vital to successful
communication.
Beba Mtoto! develops, produces
and markets carrying products and
related accessories to cater for the
fast-growing trend of the natural
parenting technique of babywearing.
ComComm is a telecommunications
platform that provides a robust
solution for the impaired
communication abilities of a rapidly
ageing population.
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (MScTE)
CurrencyBird is a peer-to-peer
currency exchange platform to
alleviate the process of international
capital transactions.
This solution matches two
individuals from different countries
to exchange via local CurrencyBird
accounts, enabling them to skip
the international exchange fees,
while enabling CurrencyBird to
offer attractively low fees.
CurrencyBird
Teófilo de la Cerda,
MSc Technology
Entrepreneurship
and Joshua Asar,
MSc Technology
Entrepreneurship
81
Winners
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2013
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (MScTE)
SellPlex solves the problem of
sellers having to load items multiple
times onto multiple platforms.
By providing sellers with the ability
to load items for sale onto multiple
platforms (such as eBay, Amazon,
Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace)
simultaneously and with minimal
effort, SellPlex is changing the way
the e-commerce industry works.
People will no longer have to waste
the time and effort usually associated
with uploading items to individual
platforms manually, as SellPlex
automates the entire process and
facilitates inventory and inbox
management.
UCL Bright Ideas
Awards (MScTE)
Smartzer is an iPad and web
application enabling interactivity
in video content. It addresses the
needs of broadcasters and studios
who are having to come up with
innovative ways to make their content
increasingly relevant and engaging to
consumers.
Smartzer works through an overlay
that presents the content metadata.
Upon touching the screen, products
in the frame can be purchased, with
home delivery.
Karoline Gross,
MSc Technology
Entrepreneurship
SellPlex
Ahmad Bakhiet,
MSc Technology
Entrepreneurship
and Kishan
Gupta, Information
Security MSc,
2010/2011
Smartzer
UCL Awards
for Enterprise
2007– 2013...
83
UCL (University College London)
was established in 1826 and is
ranked as one of the world’s top
10 universities. The university
is a modern, outward-looking
institution, with more than 4,000
academic and research staff
committed to engaging with the
major issues of our times. It has
a global reach, with 34% of its
students coming from outside the
UK, from 150 countries.
UCL Enterprise
Enterprise is important to all
universities, but resonates particularly
with UCL. From our inception, we
were created as an enterprising
institution, with a bold ambition
to create a university dedicated
to the greatest good for the
greatest number. This principle
has underpinned the evolution
of modern-day UCL, a confident
and enthusiastic community of
enterprising researchers, educators
and scholars, working together for the
immediate, medium and long-term
benefit of society.
UCL Enterprise provides UCL’s
structures for engaging with business
for commercial and societal benefit.
It includes three units: UCL
Advances, UCL Business and UCL
Consultants. Together, they provide
access to the capabilities and
resources of the UCL community to
help businesses start, grow
and develop.
www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise
UCL Advances
The centre for entrepreneurship
and business interaction at UCL,
UCL Advances, helps anyone who
wants to learn about, start or grow a
business. It offers training, services,
and funding for staff, students and
external entrepreneurs to encourage
and enable new enterprises to get
going. Unique in the UK higher
education sector, its primary role is to
promote a culture of entrepreneurship
on campus and engagement with
entrepreneurs and small businesses
beyond UCL’s boundaries, and
currently delivers more than 30
activity programmes.
UCL Business
UCL Business PLC (UCLB) is
a leading technology transfer
company, which supports and
commercialises research and
innovations arising from UCL, one
of the UK’s leading research-led
universities. UCLB has a successful
track record and strong reputation for
identifying and protecting promising
new technologies and innovations
from UCL academics.
It invests directly in development
projects to maximise the potential
of the research and manages
the commercialisation process of
technologies from the laboratory
to the market-ready stage. UCLB
supports the university’s Grand
Challenges of increasing UCL’s
positive impact on and contribution
to Global Health, Sustainable Cities,
Intercultural Interaction and
Human Wellbeing.
UCL Consultants
UCL Consultants was established
by UCL to bring its academics
together with national and
international clients, providing access
to the university’s leading-edge
expertise and world-class facilities.
UCL Consultants offers a one-stop
office for academics wishing to carry
out consultancy work, providing
comprehensive contractual, tendering
and administrative support, enabling
UCL staff to ensure timely,
high-quality delivery to meet clients’
requirements.
It has extensive experience in working
with a wide variety of clients including
multi-national, governmental
organisations, space agencies,
international companies and SMEs.
www.ucl.ac.uk/advances
www.uclb.com
Consulting with experts
www.ucl.ac.uk/consultants‎