Develop a partnership with UCL

Open up a world of possibilities for your organisation through a strategically managed, long-term research partnership.

UCL is a research powerhouse. At Innovation & Enterprise we help build collaborations that use this research to transform your organisation and the wider world.

We work with leading businesses, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), public and third sector organisations, NGOs and charities.

Find the expertise you need

Whether you’re exploring or developing products, processes or services, we’ll work out what input your organisation needs. Then we’ll match it to the breadth and depth of expertise available across UCL.

The sectors we support include:

• energy, resources and the built environment
• pharmaceuticals and healthcare 
• new technologies
• engineering and high-value manufacturing
• transport and urban services
• creative industries
• public sector and third sector

We combine this knowledge with an overview of UCL’s many areas of expertise, bringing different disciplines together to address our partners’ challenges.

Build a strategic collaboration

Whether you’re already working with UCL or new to university partnerships, there’ll be a way of working that suits you. We use recognised and bespoke tools to make sure each partnership is built on shared objectives and follows an agreed action plan.

You’ll then have a single point of contact who’ll keep it on track and look out for opportunities to extend the relationship further.

Learn more about how we can help you:

Take the first steps

If you’re new university partnerships, our Innovation Challenges and panel discussion events may be a good place to start. These bring together academics and external partners to explore how UCL’s expertise could help solve challenges facing individuals, organisations and society.

We also run other sector-based events where you can meet our academics and learn about research relevant to your industry.

Find potential collaborators

Our Partnership Managers are experts at finding the right academic collaborators across UCL.

Our innovation networks and research showcases are great ways to find academic collaborators and seed partnerships.

Work out the details

If things look promising, you’ll want to start building your partnership right away. There are a number of tools we can use to help you, including:

• facilitated round tables to define research questions in more detail
• detailed road-mapping to ensure the emerging partnership aligns with your key priorities

Our partnership managers can advise you on which tool is appropriate and help you get things organised.

Formalise your partnership

Once you've decided what your partnership will look like, you may want to make things formal through a contract, memorandum of understanding (MoU) or other form of agreement.

We can connect you to the right people to turn your partnership into reality, including addressing IP, legal and contractual questions. 

Start the conversation

Partnerships can come in all shapes and sizes, and support many different outcomes. 

See how we can tailor our support to your business. Contact a senior manager in your sector or email the Business and Innovation Partnerships team at enterprise@ucl.ac.uk

Contact our sector specialists

• Biomedical science
• Built environment
• Creative industries
• Pharmaceuticals and healthcare
• Public sector and the professions
• Transformative technologies, engineering and high-value manufacturing
• High growth SMEs