Accelerating innovation
Our fifth Emerging Technologies Competition is now open for entires. Industry Executive Isobel Marr explains how the competition has been helping turn promising ideas into commercial reality.
This year's final will be held at Chemistry Means Business on 13–14 June, and will be a chance to see some of these amazing technologies for the first time. Register for the event now.
In 2016 a team of scientists, led by Professor Andrew Cooper at the University of Liverpool, won our Emerging Technologies competition with their idea for a new type of domestic air filtration system.
They successfully demonstrated that they could use porous organic cages to remove low concentrations of formaldehyde – a potent, commonplace carcinogen – from the air.
Just six months later, the group have gone from proof-of-concept to working prototype, and are putting the competition prize money towards building a formaldehyde testing facility to further evaluate its performance.
This year sees the fifth anniversary of the competition, which was begun in 2013 as a way to give small UK-based companies and university research groups a faster route to bring their technologies to market. In 2015 we expanded the competition into Europe as well.
Collaboration for innovation
Innovation requires collaboration between companies, universities and key players in the broader landscape, such as funders, and with our vast networks and knowledge we are uniquely placed to facilitate this innovation.
Through the Emerging Technologies Competition we connect small companies and academic entrepreneurs with large companies and help validate competition entrants’ business ideas. For the winners, we provide tailored support from multinational companies, extensive business training, financial mentoring, support with media coverage, and prize money.
Since the competition’s launch, we have selected 28 winners from 250 technologies across 19 countries and it has proven to be a fantastic springboard for these entrepreneurial ideas. Our winners have gone on to raise a combined total of over £25 million in investment and funding, and one has recently announced a £28 million trade sale. In addition, we’ve seen university groups spin out in to promising businesses; and companies expand overseas, enter commercial contracts, conduct industrial scale trials, and collectively double their number of employees.
The success of the competition owes a great deal to our partners, chemistry-using multinationals who share our passion for innovation and collaboration. Our partners for 2017 are GSK, Unilever, Croda, Diageo, Pfizer, GE Life Sciences, AstraZeneca, Schlumberger, AkzoNobel, Johnson Matthey and Mondelez. This year we have also partnered with University of Cambridge and KPMG who will provide entrepreneurial training and financial mentoring to our shortlisted entrants and winners.
From ideas to commercial reality
Over the last five years our partners have supported competition winners in a number of ways, including strategy reviews, assisting with market research, product testing, guidance on intellectual property and regulation, supporting funding bids, and introducing them to new networks.
Dr Rebecca Docherty, from the University of Liverpool, who led last year’s winning team, says that the competition has paved the way to make the idea a commercial reality. "The competition has given us a route to commercialisation by matching us with an industrial collaborator in a sector that we want to work in", she says.
After their win the group were supported by competition partner AkzoNobel, who had also been looking for a solution to the problem of formaldehyde fumes. Formaldehyde is released as a pollutant from paint and so, as a leading paint and coatings supplier, the company had a huge vested interest in the technology. They have already ordered a substantial amount of the team’s material and are testing it as an addition in their decorative paints and wood coatings.
In addition to this, Gareth Crapper – research manager at AkzoNobel – has been mentoring the team and provided key feedback to guide their R&D going forward. "Eliminating formaldehyde emissions is a current challenge in several of our market sectors and this technology was not on our radar until the Emerging Technology Competition," says Gareth. "We’re keen to evaluate it, and then help the team to develop routes to commercialisation."
The team also benefited hugely from the intensive two-day entrepreneurial training course, provided to all shortlisted entrants of the competition. The course – run by the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School – gave the team new insights into identifying customers, crafting their business model, putting together their entrepreneurial team, and raising financial capital. "The course in Cambridge was fantastic," says Rebecca. "They stressed the importance of customer feedback which we will use in developing our technology further."
Once the group have built their formaldehyde testing facility they will begin performance testing on their prototype. The results from these tests, as well as feedback from AkzoNobel on the material’s suitability as a paint additive, will help them decide whether to set up as a spin-out company or look for licencing opportunities with industry.
Either way, it seems clear the technology has a bright future ahead of it.
Emerging Technologies Competition 2017
This year’s competition is now open for entries and closes on 13 March. Forty shortlisted entrants will present their technologies to panels of industry experts at Chemistry Means Business, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s flagship event for the chemistry-using industry in June 2017. We are welcoming entries in the categories of: health; energy and environment; food and drink; and materials and enabling technologies.
Find out more and apply now, on our website.
Read more success stories from our winners here.
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