Join The Academics Making An Impact By Commercialising Their Research

Academics from Durham, Newcastle and Northumbria Universities are invited to apply for pre-incorporation funding to take their promising research outcomes closer to commercialisation. Funding is available in two forms – feasibility awards of up to £10,000 and proof of concept awards of up to £50,000.

Applications must be submitted by 1 December 2023 and the application panel is particularly looking for projects that have potential to spin-out as new companies.

Northern Accelerator is a partnership between Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, Teesside and York Universities. This funding call is open to academics at Durham, Newcastle and Northumbria Universities as it is funded by UK Shared Prosperity Fund from Durham County Council and North of Tyne Combined Authority.

For a discussion about making an application, please contact the technology transfer team at your own university.

Before applying, please find out more about what the funding can be used for, and the application process here.

Proof of concept success

To date Northern Accelerator has provided funding to 110 projects across the partnership universities, investing over £4.2million to allow them to progress the commercial potential in their research.

Projects that have benefitted from the funding include Northumbria University’s Solar2Water project where Dr Muhammad Wakil Shahzad and his team were able to build a prototype of an innovative portable system that produces drinking water from air and sunlight.

Newcastle University’s CellRev also accessed proof-of-concept funding in the early stages of developing their groundbreaking company which aims to revolutionise the way cells are grown. The company has gone to raise millions of pounds of investment as it continues to grow.

Northern Accelerator provides a whole range of support to help academics progress commercial opportunities, including training via our Ideas Impact Hub and our Executives into Business programme which matches talented business executives with opportunities to lead a spin-out company at an early stage.