At Cranfield, we work with our staff, students and alumni in partnership with business and regional agencies to create entrepreneurs, new and sustainable business growth, value from our knowledge base. Our integrated innovation ecosystem empowers our entrepreneurs to reach their full potential by providing expertise, training, guidance and the tools and facilities individuals need to bring their ideas to life.
As part of our new Corporate Plan 2022-2027 Research and Innovation Strategy, we will ambitiously grow our innovation and entrepreneurship activity to increase impact from our intellectual property.
Building on our heritage, we will grow pathways to support commercial routes for our expertise and research. We will encourage all our people to develop their innate entrepreneurial mindset and translate their ideas into practical application. We will engage our alumni as part of our wider entrepreneurial community. We will grow partnerships and investment for the joint development of our Intellectual Property.
Workstreams
- Better incentivise our people to exploit their research for impact.
- Provide entrepreneurship training and innovation opportunities for all our people and partners.
- Provide a fully integrated innovation support ecosystem, capitalising on our sector-leading facilities and services.
As part of our Education Strategy , we will increase development opportunities for all students. Our extracurricular entrepreneurship programme fosters an entrepreneurial mindset, management skills to apply their technical learnings to a new context, as well as the essential soft skills for an enhanced career outcome in academia, corporate or an entrepreneurial pathway.
Workstreams
- Growing our existing enterprise education provision to allow all student, staff, and alumni to engage and benefit.
- Introducing new targeted enterprise development support for our graduating PhD students.
- Increasing engagement with our incubation and accelerator facilities including a clear and sustainable pipeline of users.
- Extending our support for SMEs.
- Growth impact from our Intellectual Property through increased licensing of patented IP and a focus on start-ups with high potential for sustainability and growth.
