Home » About Us
About Us
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded Innovation Launchpad Network+ will bring together leading universities, the Catapult Network and regional innovation ecosystems to enrich the exchange of ideas and knowledge across these organisations.
The Network+ has a broad geographical representation, with three of the four home nations represented through the Scientific Advisory Panels (SAP) , and all three thematic areas (net zero, health and wellbeing, resilience) covered by the Co-Investigators: Professor Fiona Charnley, University of Exeter and Professor Stephen McArthur, University of Strathclyde (Net Zero), Professor Alex Frangi, University of Leeds and Professor Mimoun Azzouz, University of Sheffield (Health and Wellbeing) and Professor Ashutosh Tiwari, University of Sheffield, Professor Ben Hicks, University of Bristol and Professor Paul Jennings, University of Warwick (Resilience).
The Innovation Launchpad Network+ will play a key role in providing a pipeline of new understanding by bringing together cross functional teams from across academia and the Catapults.
We will enable this by identifying and creating a range of engagement opportunities which will allow academic researchers to collaborate with their colleagues in the Catapults, grow the maturity of new technologies, tools and techniques and diffuse the new understanding created across the Catapult Network.
A key part of our vision will be to enable collaboration between individuals and groups who are yet to engage with the Catapults:
Primary goals:
- Encourage engagement between academia and the Catapults
- Deliver the Researchers in Residence (RiR) awards.
Secondary goals:
- Promote mobility
- Support knowledge exchange activities.
Network+ Activities
To realise this, the Innovation Launchpad Network+ will:
- Serve as the focal point of integration between the UK’s academic research community and the Catapult Network, by providing the vision and tools for collaborative engagement.
- Effectively identify research projects that have matured to the level appropriate for the RiR Scheme and to foster their integration into the Catapults.
- Assist UK academia in creating impact from novel research, within the three identified themes; net zero, healthcare and wellbeing, and resilience.
- Assist in identifying any additional fundamental research needed to overcome bottlenecks further up the innovation landscape.
The Innovation Launchpad Network+ will host community events each year, to create new interdisciplinary research communities of potential and current RiRs. These will include:
- Network-wide events: including a first Community Engagement Workshop, a number of midpoint conference events and a close up/future of the Network meeting.
- Focused theme workshops to identify key challenges: two workshops per year are planned for each theme with Catapults and potential applicants over the duration of the Network to identify key challenges for future applications.
- These events will produce a number of Horizon Reports which set out the key topics and challenges that can be solved by the wider Catapult and academic community.