NERC Impact Acceleration Account
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) chose The University of Manchester to participate in a pilot Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), with funding of £200,000, running until 31 March 2015.
This IAA is helping us to maximise our economic and social impact, by ensuring we deliver research and expertise in a timely and beneficial manner to relevant external partners, and in turn to inform and strengthen research activity by interacting effectively with those partners.
This means you can now access our research and expertise via the following activities:
We want to encourage long-term, beneficial collaboration between business and academics by establishing contact and aligning everyone’s strategies at an early stage.
That’s why our Relationship Incubator Scheme aims to overcome any market understanding/technology awareness and relationship barriers by:
- supporting the secondment-out of academics to organisations, so they can explore the application and exploitation opportunities for their NERC research;
- enabling the secondment-in of organisation representatives, who can then explore opportunities offered by an identified range of NERC research.
Get involved
If you have a project that you think may be suitable for our Relationship Incubator Scheme, contact us for more information.
We can help you to make your application, and you can download our guidance notes below:
- Relationship Incubator Scheme guidance notes (PDF document, 80KB)
NERC research can remain unexploited, because a greater evidence base is required before companies or academics are able to commit to further development and application.
We therefore use funding to bridge the gap in support for early-stage commercialisation of ideas via a range of feasibility studies – for example supporting the development of an early evaluation prototype or ‘demonstrator’, initial trials in a particular field, or scoping exercises.
Case study
Carbon calculator
We helped produce a carbon footprint calculator to support environmental sustainability within industry.
Read our carbon calculator case study (PDF document, 514KB).
Get involved
If you have a project that would benefit from a concept development and feasibility study, contact us for more information.
We can help you to make your application, and you can download our guidance notes below:
- Concept development and feasibility study guidance notes (PDF document, 387KB)
One of the best ways to increase the exchange of knowledge is to encourage the exchange of people between universities and organisations.
We can provide flexible support for secondments between the University and your business or organisation, which focus on the commercial development of specific NERC research outputs. This includes secondments-in to the University of your staff, or the secondment-out of our staff to your organisation.
This support also helps us to extend the culture and skills for business engagement at the University, as we can focus on offering support where it is most needed, for researchers who do not normally engage in exploitation through knowledge exchange fellows.
Case study
APEM
The University has helped APEM to gain an insight into the factors that influence algal blooms, which can reduce water quality and cause potential health problems if left unchecked.
Watch the APEM video.
Get involved
If you have a project that would benefit from an exploitation secondment, contact us for more information.
We can help you to make your application, and you can download our guidance notes below:
- Exploitation secondment guidance notes (PDF document, 80KB)
Our IAA Operations Board is pleased to announce a second call for proposals (PDF document, 155KB) for funding, with a closing deadline of 9 April 2014, 12 noon. Projects must be in a position to complete spend by 31 March 2015.