June 2014

United Kingdom Science Park Association News Release

Shortlist announced for UKSPA 30th Anniversary Awards

The United Kingdom Science Park Association has unveiled the shortlist for their 30^th Anniversary Awards programme.

The six Awards cover the Most Successful:

• Innovation Location
• Innovative
• Company on an UKSPA site
• Innovation Partnership and Co-Operation
• Innovative Project on a Member site
• Technology Incubator/Innovation Centre and
• Design and Sustainability building or initiative.

The Winner of each award will be announced at UKSPA’s 30^th Anniversary Summit

UKSPA Chief Executive Paul Wright said:

“The shortlist for the 30th Anniversary Awards celebrates the achievements of the sector, our partners, members and their tenant companies. The work undertaken on over 100 Member locations demonstrates world class innovation within the UK and shows how our members and their teams work together to create business success.”

UKSPA Chairman David Hardman commented that:

“Selecting the shortlist from such a high quality field was no easy task and I am particularly grateful to colleagues from across the United Kingdom for their contributions to this significant milestone for the Association.”

“The Conference, Awards Dinner and Exhibition in Birmingham next month will showcase the important work of the Science Park and Innovation Movement which over the last three decades has delivered significant economic growth to the national and local knowledge economies. The shortlist for the UKSPA 30^th Anniversary Awards demonstrates the success of high-growth technology and knowledge based firms, their partnerships, initiatives as well as the innovation locations that support and nurture this success”.

The winners of the six awards will be announced at the UKSPA 3-0^th Anniversary Summit Gala Dinner – sponsored by essensys – which takes place at the ICC, Birmingham on the evening of Thursday 10 July. The evening will be hosted by Dr Michael Mosley; writer and presenter of BBC2′s The Story of Science and the face of science and medicine on The One Show.

The shortlisted entrants are:

The UKSPA 30th Anniversary Award for Most Successful Innovation Environment.

• Bristol and Bath Science Park
• Kent Science Park
• Northern Ireland Science Park
• Sci-Tech Daresbury
• Surrey Research Park

The UKSPA 30th Anniversary Award for the Most Successful Company

• Ecologia – Kent Science Park
• Intelligent Energy – Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park
• Path XL – Northern Ireland Science Park
• PolyPhotonix – NetPark
• Smart Antennae Technologies – Birmingham Research Park

The UKSPA 30th Anniversary Award for Innovation Partnership

• Biorenewables Development Centre (York)
• essensys
• ra Information Systems – UKSPA CLARITY

The UKSPA 30th Anniversary Award for Design and Sustainability

• Liverpool Science Park
• SEaB Energy Ltd
• Sheppard

The UKSPA 30th Anniversary Award for the Most Innovative Project

• BEST Network
• Northern Ireland Science Park Trust
• Sci-Tech Daresbury

The UKSPA 30th Anniversary award for the incubation or innovation centre with the best track record of developing start-up and high growth business

• Imperial Incubator
• Innovations Technology Access Centre (I-TAC) Sci-Tech Daresbury
• Springboard – York Science Park

http://www.ukspa.org.uk/

The pros and cons of taking early stage technology to the market

Dr Nicola Broughton’s experience of a University start-up Company

Speaker: Dr Nicola Broughton of TechTranIP

Nicola is a consultant specialising in the commercialisation of Intellectual Property, she has over 15 years’ experience in adding value to intellectual property for Universities and small companies, advising them on how to get Intellectual Property to the market and lecturing on the subject at Warwick Business School.

She has fulfilled a number of commercial roles. Her experience includes: sourcing and identifying commercial opportunities; IP protection; strategy and management (managing a patent portfolio to global protection); “freedom to operate”; licensing; cross licensing; due diligence; and raising finance in both the public and private sectors, as well as writing business plans. Nicola has experience of negotiating commercial deals with large and small corporations, universities and CROs.

Nicola has access to early stage funders and to a wide range of industry experts who can bring their experience to bear on early stage technology. She recently helped a small business start-up a high tech company and raise £400,000 seed finance.

Nicola will talk about her experience of starting up a company and particularly the things she wished she had known before she embarked on the project. She will look at raising finance, what to do when things go wrong and you have to change your strategy, how to resource the project using different models, the intellectual property challenge and life cycles and exit strategies.

Registration via Eventbrite essential: http://bit.ly/1piZU1L

Wednesday 25^th June 2014, 12-2pm (Lunch provided)

BizzInn 2^nd Floor, Institute of Research & Development

Birmingham Research Park

Spring Active founder, Peter Dines shares his experience of how BizzInn support has helped to develop his latest healthcare business

“I originally started to use the BizzInn facilities in October 2013 following a chance conversation with the CEO of Alta Innovations, James Wilkie. At the time I was working on my own and had just started my company, Spring Active, which is focused on alleviating back pain.

I was attracted to BizzInn because I am passionate about supporting Birmingham based entrepreneurs and benefits from the office space and advice. I had recently acquired the knowledge and assets of my business and needed to focus on business development. As any business owner would say, the chances of low fixed costs enabled me to focus more on business generation. BizzInn provided this opportunity and also opened up access to their network of contacts.

It was this access to their network which really helped to develop my business. I gained free advice and guidance on Intellectual Property and was introduced to specific people within the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Psychology Department, University of Birmingham Health Economics Department and healthcare sector.

BizzInn holds breakfast and business club meetings and it was through one of these meetings that I met a very important business contact who I have worked with ever since. Whilst based at BizzInn I completely re-launched the offering of my business so that it provides a full integrated pathway for back pain management which is a niche market to operate in.

It is a nice environment to work in at BizzInn and through my experiences and knowledge I have been able to help other tenants as they develop their businesses.

With the help of BizzInn, my business has grown significantly in a short period of time. I have employed two full time and one part time members of staff. As I grew I needed more office space and in March 2014 I graduated to larger offices within Birmingham Research Park. I wanted to remain part of the environment as the Parks location within the Edgbaston Medical Quarter is the natural place to locate my business. As part of this move I re-located another of my businesses, Diagnostic Health, as for me it is the perfect location to develop healthcare business in Birmingham.

My future plans for Spring Active are to achieve its social purpose of solving back pain whilst achieving commercial success. On a personal level I want to continue developing high quality health care companies in Birmingham.

I would definitely recommend BizzInn to any business that is looking to develop.”

Spring Active are an experienced team of clinicians whose passion is to treat and resolve back pain, they have developed and provide a number of programmes aimed at successfully treating back pain. To find out more, visit their website: http://spring-active.com/

For further information on how you can access business support at the BizzInn, contact Andrew Cruxton on 0121 414 6132 or email [email protected] for further information.