University of Birmingham Enterprise Annual Review 2023-24

As you explore this review, I think you'll get a sense that this last year has seen University of Birmingham Enterprise consolidating a lot of change.

As an organisation having been through a period of rapid growth in demand for our products and services, and in our personnel, we made a number of changes in our organisational structure and leadership at the start of the year. Since then, our teams have been embedding many new processes and systems. The company now has superbly refurbished fit-for-purpose headquarters, plus a new communications plan we will be implementing in the coming year to ensure that our stakeholders know about and can help us support the important products and services that are developed by with or at the University of Birmingham.

The companies based with us at Birmingham Research Park have continued to develop and grow, with significant support of the team. It's been wonderful to have been recognised for this support, with Unit 9 winning the Place-based Knowledge Exchange Initiative of the Year prize from PraxisAuril earlier in the year.

This year, there has been a huge effort to accelerate the pipeline of the ideas we deal with towards product development and market. We've seen significant funding rounds in a several of our spin-out companies, including Salinity Solutions, Tagomics and 4D Medicine, as well as the establishment of the new Midland Pharmaceuticals Ltd spin-out which is developing a therapeutic for spinal cord injury.

We’ve continued to grow our innovative EnterpriseOD^TM Operating Division model, which provides a route for researchers to commercialise their products and services. As well as two new Operating Divisions, we have a number in the pipeline. Several of our more recent ones are now close to spinning out, having proved the market by closing deals with customers and partners. We’re also seeing more opportunities in the social sciences, humanities and the arts, as we build on our successes in life sciences and deep technology. Our goal is to open up new paths to commercialisation in these often-neglected SHAPE industries.

Spin-outs are going to be critical to the UK’s future economic growth, and our region, with its outstanding research facilities and relatively low costs, has the capacity to become a leader in this space. But to achieve that we need to draw in more investment. That’s why we’ve continued to collaborate with seven other Midlands Innovation regional universities following our previous launch of Midlands Mindforge, a patient capital investor which intends to back spin-outs from our institutions.

In the year ahead, we aim to leverage those partnerships with Midlands Innovation and other key stakeholders to help companies take full advantage of the huge pool of talent and facilities that our region has to offer. That’s not just a matter of connecting our spin-outs with expertise and capital - but also ensuring that its easier for all our regional companies to benefit from access to the University of Birmingham’s own extraordinary expertise and facilities.

The work achieved in the last year, and our plans for the next, all serve to ensure that we continue to increase the number of really important products and services to market, as effectively as possible, and to enhance the value generated for the University and our academic innovators.

Coupled with our new headquarters and new systems, we are going to ensure our staff continue to develop as effective ambassadors, so you can expect to see and hear lots more from University of Birmingham Enterprise over the coming year!

David Coleman
CEO, University of Birmingham Enterprise