How UCL’s been creating impact in 2025

Knowledge exchange is a two-way exchange that links university research, ideas and expertise, with people and organisations outside academia, to solve societal problems, and accelerate change.

It encompasses everything from working with external organisations, and public and community engagement, to students starting their own ventures, and staff commercialising their research into spinout businesses.

We place a significant emphasis on this activity here at UCL, and have been recognised for the last five years as one of the leading universities for knowledge exchange and innovation. 

So, what’s been going on? 

Here’s a snapshot of some of the knowledge exchange and innovation activities our staff, students and graduates have been involved in in 2025, from new collaborations to new businesses.

Achieving impact on a local, national and global scale

Several major partnership projects took leaps forward, building on our links with governments, industry and other universities, to accelerate UCL’s impact in the UK and globally.

London’s first Space Enterprise Lab, which has now opened at UCL, means that businesses, researchers and practitioners will have access to new resources and networks to fast-track space innovation.

Quantum research has also been given a boost, with the announcement of the new London Quantum Technology Cluster being opened by UCL and partners. The dedicated incubator is set to accelerate the growth of quantum businesses and technologies.

The UK’s creative and cultural sectors will benefit from a new Creative Experience Lab, launched by UCL and Loughborough London. The new hub will enable new live experiences to be co-created with partners like V&A East, using technologies such as AI and robotics.

A major collaboration between UCL and South Korea aims to advance terrestrial, maritime and aerospace technologies, through the newly created UCL Global Industrial Technology Cooperation Centre (GITCC). The launch of the centre was celebrated in November at the British Embassy in Seoul.

UCL and the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine (MDT) have entered a landmark partnership to advance Ukraine’s digital transformation and economic recovery through research, innovation and knowledge exchange. The partnership will advance responsible research that addresses the pressing critical societal challenges arising from war.

We’ve been helping student startups have more impact globally as well. Ten promising startups took part in the second UK-Swiss entrepreneurship exchange programme. A partnership between UCL, EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Innovaud, Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom and British Embassy Bern, Switzerland.

Advancing treatments and therapies of the future

In 2025 UCL was cemented as global leader in developing and trialling advanced medicinal therapies.

At the Advanced Therapies Symposium, UCL researchers presented groundbreaking work on new cell and gene therapies, giving new hope to people with conditions such as dementia, Motor Neurone Disease, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune disorders. 

The first ever treatment for the rare neurodegenerative disease Friedrich’s ataxia – for which UCL and UCLH led the UK trial – was also approved for use in the UK.

Making UCL a place for entrepreneurship

UCL is a place where ideas can come alive. Every year, staff, students and recent graduates have the chance to test and grow their entrepreneurial skills and ideas, and many go on to set up their own ventures.

This year we celebrated ten years of nurturing entrepreneurs at BaseKX in King’s Cross. Thousands of people have accessed support, and 600 startups have been launched, since we first opened the dedicated hub in 2015.

11 UCL students and alumni were recognised as some of the most promising young entrepreneurs in Europe in this year's Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list. 

The growth and impact of several other startups was celebrated at this year's London Demo Day. Twenty exciting early-stage ventures - including 4 from UCL - pitched to an audience of 600 guests, including investors, for the chance of raising between £100,000 and £2 million.

Celebrating student startup success

A number of startups secured funding, opportunities and other prominent awards this year.

Throxy, a UCL startup that uses AI to help companies find new clients, was selected to join the world leading Y Combinator business accelerator programme. Throxy also secured $6.2 million in investment to scale up its artificial intelligence assisted platform.

Double Dutch Drinks, set up by UCL alumnae Joyce and Raissa de Haas (UCL MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship, 2014) secured £4.5 million to support their premium mixers business to expand in the UK and globally.

UCL alumnus Vishal Kumas (Spatial Data Science and Visualisation MSc, 2017) also secured $2 million, to develop his AI-powered camera that’s set to simplify professional content creation.

Zubair Junjunia (UCL Mathematics, 2020) was recognised at the 2025 Commonwealth Youth Awards, for his ed-tech startup ZNotes that’s helping millions of students with their learning. 

Several businesses also won awards and funding at our Hatchery Summer Showcase, including Pentestify, a business that’s helping prevent contract hacking, and Building Bones, a programme to support bone health.

Empowering and celebrating UCL’s community

Throughout the year, we empower our staff, students and alumni to transform their research and ideas into real world impact by providing training, funding and advice.

For example, our month-long Transform programme in June saw UCL staff and doctoral students attend over 30 events and workshops, gaining skills, knowledge and confidence to get involved in knowledge exchange.

Since January 2025, over 1,380 attendees have participated in our extra-curricular entrepreneurship workshops and programmes, building entrepreneurial skills, developing ideas and learning what’s involved in setting up an entrepreneurial venture.

We’ve funded 153 knowledge exchange projects in 2025 so far, through our UK Research and Innovation’s Impact Acceleration Accounts. That's £2,753,340 awarded to projects which are translating research to real impacts, transforming public services, creating new jobs, attracting private investment and forging new partnerships with business and charities. 

We also celebrated staff, students and alumni leading the way in knowledge exchange and innovation at annual awards ceremony, ‘Creating Impact Through Knowledge Exchange 2025 Awards’.

If you’re a member of the UCL community and want to engage in knowledge exchange and innovation, or an external organisation wanting to collaborate with UCL, please get in touch with UCL Innovation & Enterprise.

Links

Find out more about:

• support for external organisations to engage with UCL
• knowledge exchange and innovation support for UCL staff
• entrepreneurship support for staff and recent graduates
• UCL’s plans for knowledge exchange and innovation over the next five years
• knowledge exchange news stories