Global Challenge campaign FAQs
Emerging as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, our Global Challenge programme works to leverage our two partnering platforms, Connect and Discover, to accelerate technical solutions to society’s greatest health and environmental challenges.
Building on the success of starting over a hundred new conversations between academia and industry around the development of solutions, treatments and vaccine platforms for Covid-19, we have since run four more campaigns – another on Covid-19, the plastic pollution crisis, water pollution, cancer, and leveraging the microbiome to prevent disease and improve health. Our current Global Challenge campaign will aim to surface the next generation of treatments and diagnostic tools for rare diseases.
FAQs
What is a Global Challenge campaign?
How does a Global Challenge campaign work?
Who can participate in a Global Challenge?
Is there a cost associated with participating in the campaign?
What happens after you submit your project or research?
Is the Virtual series part of the Global Challenge?
What is a Global Challenge campaign?
The vision for our Global Challenge programme is to drive innovation and collaboration to address global health and environmental challenges. Our Global Challenge topics are driven by unmet needs, industry R&D priorities and alignment with sustainable development and growth. They present the opportunity for academic researchers and technology transfer offices to have their projects, inventions or breakthroughs proactively disseminated to industry with the aim of starting new conversations that lead to the commercialisation and deployment of new solutions.
The Global Challenges campaigns build on the work we’ve done since 2014 to simplify the initial connection between teams in academia and industry. We leverage our matchmaking platform, Connect, and the experience we’ve gained through our Discover platform in finding solutions for companies to specific R&D requirements, as well as our global academia-industry network and our own in-house STEM expertise, to focus and drive collaboration in a challenge area of benefit to society and the environment.
We also run an online event programme associated with the campaign to provide a forum for the academia-industry community to connect around the topic. And after the campaign closes, we publish a white paper summarising R&D trends within the research area.
What are our main objectives?
Our aim is to surface the latest academic research, technologies, and assets relating to the campaign topic that are available and seeking industry collaboration, with the view to start new conversations and partnerships that lead to further development and commercialisation.
We are aiming to provide a clear pathway to collaborative development and the deployment of new interventions and solutions to global health and sustainability-related issues.
How does a Global Challenges campaign work?
Each Global Challenge campaign runs over a six-week period, during which we gather submissions from the academic and technology transfer community. Our teams focus on making sure R&D teams with aligned interests are sent relevant projects to review and engage with. When a project fits with a company’s technical requirements, our team then sets up the initial introduction so that a conversation can proceed about collaboration.
We invite our academic and research commercialisation community to submit a short digest of any research, technologies and innovation addressing the Global Challenge. We post each submission on our matchmaking platform, Connect, build repositories of the technologies, and create insightful content with our analysis of the engagement trends.
Our Global Challenge campaign partners lead the conversation around the chosen topic and present their approaches to partnering and collaboration.
Who can participate in a Global Challenge?
We want to hear from any researchers who are working on innovations within the scope of the Global Challenge campaign that are seeking partnering opportunities. We also want to hear from university technology transfer and research commercialisation professionals who can provide non-confidential details of suitable technologies or assets at their institute.
Our Global Challenge campaigns are free and open to all research institutes and are not restricted to universities that have a subscription to IN-PART’s matchmaking platform, Connect. These campaigns help us to raise our profile and to grow our academia-industry networks, but our core ambition is to contribute to the research ecosystem and society by leveraging our position between the two communities and our experience in bringing them together.
Companies can join our free partnering network to view the submissions to each Global Challenge campaign from universities and research institutes worldwide and have their R&D priorities matched to new, unsurfaced opportunities.
If you’re working in R&D and new to our partnering network and challenge campaigns: you can set up an account (this takes less than a minute) via this link.
What is a campaign partner?
As part of these Global Challenge campaigns, we partner with organisations across the research, knowledge transfer, and R&D ecosystems in order to not only boost the campaigns, but also to help define the scope and provide expertise.
Industry campaign partners
Through each campaign, we explore the current technical R&D challenges in the field with the aim of surfacing innovations that accelerate the development of solutions. These technical R&D needs and priorities are defined by our industry campaign partners. Each will present their R&D priorities and partnering strategies in a series of industry partnering webinars as part of our Global Challenge Virtual Series.
Academic partners (new for 2023!)
For the first time in our Global Challenge programme, we are partnering with academic institutes to provide a unique academic push mechanism to drive innovation into R&D. As academic partners for the Global Challenge, these institutes will be sharing a curated portfolio of cutting-edge technologies from world-leading academics at their respective institutes who are actively searching for industry partners, via one-page shareable PDFs and free live webinars, as part of our Virtual Series.
Association partners
Our association campaign partners include ASTP and PraxisAuril, both knowledge exchange professional associations with whom we have partnered for the last three Global Challenges. More recently, we have partnered with the UK BioIndustry Association (BIA), a trade association for professionals in bioscience SMEs.
Media partner (new for 2023!)
As of 2023, we are also happy to introduce our first-ever Global Challenge media partner, Labiotech. Labiotech.eu is the leading digital media covering the global biotech industry. Over 150,000 monthly visitors use it to keep an eye on the business and innovations in biotechnology. Learn more.
Is there a cost associated with participating in the campaign?
Submitting research, technologies or assets to the campaign and having them disseminated to industry is free for all TTOs and academics and doesn’t require a subscription to IN-PART.
Technologies submitted to the Global Challenge are hosted on our Connect platform, which is completely free for companies to join to review the latest commercial-facing research and technologies. We don’t take finders fees or success fees, and the conversations started through this campaign and our platforms are hosted exclusively between you and the team behind the project.
What happens after you submit your project or research?
After you have submitted an opportunity, a member of our team will email you to confirm that it has been received. The opportunity will then be uploaded to our matchmaking platform, Connect. It will be fed into our matchmaking systems and proactively disseminated to R&D teams with aligned interests, including the industry campaign partners.
For R&D teams who want to learn more about your opportunity or to start a conversation with your team, we will then provide a direct introduction via email for you to open a dialogue and to share further details of your work or the project.
This activity builds on the work we do through our matchmaking platforms to simplify the initial connection between teams in academia and industry, leveraging our networks and expertise to focus on addressing a crucial global challenge. We don’t take finders fees or success fees, and the conversations started through this campaign and our platforms are hosted exclusively between you and the other party.
Is the Virtual Series part of the Global Challenge?
Our Virtual Series is a free-to-attend online event series that runs alongside each Global Challenge campaign. The events provide an opportunity for our campaign partners across industry and academia to present their R&D priorities, technical needs, approaches to partnering, and research expertise. Virtual Series attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and connect directly with each campaign partner.
The Virtual Series typically runs during the 6-week submission phase of each campaign, which is the period during which we are accepting submissions detailing non-confidential information of technologies, projects, and/or assets from academia.
Our webinars are all online, free to attend, and full recordings of each event are circulated to all who register.
Further details:
- Information about your project or technology will be distributed to industry R&D teams with aligned research interests through our online matchmaking platform, Connect.
- Submitting your work does not require a subscription to our platform, there will be no costs from IN-PART at any stage.
- Support from our team of STEM experts will be provided where required to review and quality-control submissions.
- Any information sent to us should be non-confidential.
- If you are aware of academic research or technology transfer taking place at your institute to develop new immuno-oncology innovations, please share this submission form with relevant colleagues or contacts.
- A maximum of 6 submissions can be made per person and we reserve the right to only accept research that is aligned with the aims and themes outlined in the call.
- For subscribed universities with a submission limit for IN-PART, any new technologies that are submitted to the global challenge will not count towards your submission total. Twelve weeks after the call closes, this exemption will no longer apply and you may be asked to unlist technologies and/or upgrade your submission limit if your current limit is exceeded.
- Universities with relevant technologies already on IN-PART can email their Account Manager to request their inclusion in our open research directory, white paper, and associated communications around the campaign.
- We strongly recommend submitting your research in advance of the campaign deadline to maximise exposure with our industry networks.
If you have any unanswered questions or want to learn more about engaging with the campaign, send our team a message (submissions@in-part.co.uk) and we’ll get back to you promptly.
Written by Anabel Bennett. Edited by Joseph Ferner.
Copyrights reserved unless otherwise agreed – IN-PART Publishing Ltd., 2023: ‘Global Challenges campaign FAQs’
IN-PART:
We believe brilliant connections can solve real-world problems. We match research pioneers from academia with decision-makers in industry sectors striving for a greater positive impact.
Our goal is to enable connections from around the world to match academic research with industry on a level playing field. Through our intelligent, matchmaking platform we showcase leading university innovations and connect academics with an international community of decision-makers in industry, creating meaningful dialogue and partnership.
Connect, a digital partnering platform for university-industry collaboration.
250+ universities and research institutes around the world currently showcase their research and innovation on IN-PART to find new collaboration partners in industry. R&D teams get free access to the platform (create an account here). There are no hidden costs and we don’t claim downstream success fees.
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Through Discover, corporate R&D teams can leverage our extended academic network, which reaches multiple teams across 2,600+ universities and research institutes worldwide. In response to a specific research requirement or challenge, Discover enables R&D teams to identify new opportunities for commercialisation or to solicit proposals for new research.
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