Northern Accelerator recognised as Place-based Knowledge Exchange Initiative of the Year

Northern Accelerator has been awarded the prestigious Place-Based Knowledge Exchange (KE) Initiative of the Year at the PraxisAuril Knowledge Exchange Awards 2024.

Having transformed research commercialisation across the North East and now grown to a collaboration of six universities, Northern Accelerator received the sector award at a ceremony in Bristol on 21 November.  

The recognition celebrates Northern Accelerator's impactful work in driving economic growth, innovation, and social value through a strong partnership of Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, Teesside and York Universities.

Translating world-leading research into sustainable business

Northern Accelerator helps founding academics create R&D intensive, high potential spinouts in the North East and North Yorkshire, realising social and environmental impact from research, and helping create more and better jobs. By supporting technology transfer through a combination of training, funding, networking and executive leadership, the programme has significantly boosted the rate of commercialisation of academic research.

The shared vision of the partners, the founders and funders is that the programme will contribute to economic growth in the North East. To date Northern Accelerator has launched over 50 businesses, with many now based in regional innovation hubs like Newcastle Helix and Durham’s NETPark.

Northern Accelerator is funded by Research England’s Connecting Capability Fund, and by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund through Durham County Council and The North East Combined Authority.

Recognition from the knowledge exchange sector

Knowledge Exchange UK (formerly PraxisAuril) is a world-leading professional association for Knowledge Exchange practitioners. They support and enable professional knowledge exchange and commercialisation between universities and business, helping members stand out as the most effective practitioners in their field, anywhere in the world.

Place-based collaboration

The award underscores the growing recognition of the North East as a hub for innovation, research and development. By focusing on place-based knowledge exchange, Northern Accelerator has worked to ensure that the benefits of research commercialisation are felt within the region, contributing to job creation, investment, and regional regeneration.

Chelsea Brain, IP and Commercialisation Manager at Northumbria University and programme lead at Northumbria for Northern Accelerator, was there to collect the award with partnership colleagues. “Northern Accelerator has catalysed research commercialisation at Northumbria University. PulmoBioMed was our first spinout in 2020 – made possible by Northern Accelerator schemes. We used proof of concept money from Northern Accelerator to build prototypes, brought an experienced businessperson in through the Executives into Business programme and last year helped raise significant investment for the first time. Northumbria’s research commercialisation activity has grown at speed since the Northern Accelerator partnership began in 2018. Our invention disclosure rate now stands at more than 50 a year, and we have a pipeline of spinouts.

“We are thrilled that the vibrant innovation and spinout ecosystem in the North East and North Yorkshire, driven by this partnership, has been recognised through this Place-Based Knowledge Exchange Initiative of the Year award.”

Edwin Milligan, Northern Accelerator Senior Project Manager, said: “Northern Accelerator facilitates sharing of good practice across our network of knowledge exchange professionals. Our partnership includes research intensive universities with strong spinout track records and institutions with more limited technology transfer capacity and experience.

“All partner institutions have produced at least one spinout with Northern Accelerator support. Our approach is highly collaborative, informing not only the support programme but also partner’s approach to commercialisation policy and practice.”

The power of partnerships

Further success of North East business and innovation initiatives was seen at the awards, with another regional universities partnership, Arrow, shortlisted for Knowledge Exchange Team of the Year.

Arrow is a pioneering collaborative innovation support programme matching regional businesses with university expertise. The programme is part-funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund through Durham County Council and The North East Combined Authority.

The short-listing recognises the work of the fantastic cross-university Arrow team members and the partnership between Durham University, Newcastle University, Northumbria University, and the University of Sunderland.  Through Arrow the universities are working together to drive innovation and impactful knowledge exchange having already supported over 200 regional businesses in the North East of England.

Discover how Northern Accelerator Arrow are reshaping the landscape of spinouts and SME-university support in the North East and driving economic growth:

Learn more about Northern Accelerator.

Learn more about Arrow.