Provision of Innovation & Commercialisation of University Research

Tender description

The University of Southampton is looking to contract out the very successful and award winning ICURe Programme (Innovation & Commercialisation of University Research). It is into its sixth year of instilling innovation and commercialisation awareness into research groups in universities throughout the UK ( www.icure.uk ). ICURe gets researchers 'out of the lab and into the marketplace' to identify and validate the market opportunities for their research results. ICURe helps to break through the barriers that keep the potentially world changing research knowledge 'bottled up' for so many university research groups. The ICURe Programme operates on the same principles, that it 'preaches' to the university researchers going through ICURe, of keeping ICURe innovative, responsive, flexible and lean. Therefore, ICURe relies heavily on a significant number of independent individuals to deliver many of the key elements of the ICURe Programme. The ICURe Programme is a key element of the UKRI commercialisation strategy with its funding coming annually via Innovate UK. This annualised funding has been a key factor in structuring the Programme to rely heavily on experienced and innovative individuals that are engaged to deliver key elements of the Programme on an 'as required' basis during the year. The year on year funding also makes it very difficult to employ people, as job security is not currently possible. The nature of the ICURe Programme, running in approximately 3-month long cohorts with differing capability requirements at various times during each of the cohorts, also dictates that specific capabilities are only required occasionally. In order to apply for this opportunity, you will need to register on the University's online e-tendering portal In-Tend - https://in-tendhost.co.uk/universityofsouthampton/aspx/home Expressions of interest and the tender documents will only be made available via In-Tend