By Michele Barbour, APVC – Enterprise and Innovation
In July 2023, the University of Bristol welcomed over 300 guests representing over 95 companies and organisations to the Festival of Enterprise. It was a stimulating day of discussion and debate on the opportunities and challenges at the interface between research and the commercial world.
Anna-Lisa Wesley’s stimulating keynote, #Step into the spin, gave an excellent insight into the mind of the spin-out chairperson, and set us up for a robust discussion about academic entrepreneurship and the landscape for spin-out founders, investors, ecosystem providers, and commercialisation professionals. We were joined by an expert panel featuring Kimberley Brook, Anthony Croxford, Rosalind Darby, Catherine Fletcher, Rayner Lim and Alun Williams, chaired by Andrew Wray.
We went on to focus on industry-academia collaboration with an inspiring keynote by Oracle for Research’s Alison Derbenwick Miller, who painted an uplifting vision of what can be achieved when academia and industry work in a close and mutually respectful partnership. These themes were explored and elaborated further by an expert panel featuring Sam Bell, Hamid Falaki, Frances Frith, Stuart Harrison, Sofia Oliveira, Arjun Parekh and Rich Pitts, chaired by Annela Seddon.
We were also delighted to welcome our 2022/23 University Enterprise Fellows and enjoyed presentations by Marc Holderied, Paul Golf, Joanna Burch-Brown, Laszlo Talas and Emmanouil Tranos, on their exciting commercialisation undertakings. The whole day was further strengthened by our exhibition featuring Business West, Innovate UK Edge SW, WECA’s Business Growth Hub, Quantum Frontier, Science Creates, Future Space, Setsquared Bristol, Cabot Institute, Elizabeth Blackwell Institute, Bristol Digital Futures Institute, Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, and many of our University teams who support enterprising academics.
What emerged was a sense of hope and optimism, that by working at the interface of research and industry we can address some of society’s most pressing issues. Another theme was humility – that only by working in collaboration and partnership can we achieve that impact. A further strong thread to run through the day was trust – that collaborative relationships, whether between industry and academia, between investor and entrepreneur, between commercialisation professional and academic, can only thrive where there is mutual trust, openness and respect.
Thank you again to our speakers, exhibitors and guests for such a stimulating, inspiring, and enjoyable Festival.
You can watch a short video synopsis of the Festival below.