Global Challenges campaign FAQs: Leveraging the microbiome to prevent disease and improve human health
We launched our first Global Challenge campaign (which we then called an ‘open call for research’) in the spring of 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. With this campaign, we focused our resources on reaching out to all the universities and academics in our extended global network to share any new research at their institute which was aiming to address Covid-19 so we could match it with industry partners for expedited deployment.
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 three more campaigns – another on Covid-19, the plastic pollution crisis, and our most recent Global Challenge on water pollution. We are now turning our attention to preventing diseases and improving human health by investigating the relationships between the microbiome and disease.
FAQs
What is a Global Challenge campaign?
How does a Global Challenge campaign work?
What happens after you submit your project or research?
Why are we running a Global Challenge campaign focussed on the microbiome?
What is a Global Challenge campaign?
The vision for our Global Challenge campaigns is to drive innovation and collaboration in areas identified by industry that align with sustainable development and growth. They present the opportunity for academic researchers and technology transfer offices to have their projects, inventions or breakthroughs relating to a current global challenge 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 connection between teams in academia and industry. We leverage the technology of our core matchmaking platform, Connect, and the experiences we’ve gained through our Discover platform in finding solutions for companies to specific industrial requirements, as well as the in-house STEM expertise in our team and the engagement from our global academia-industry community, 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 engagement trends within the research area (view our water pollution R&D trends white paper here).
What are our main objectives?
Our aim is to surface the latest academic research, technologies, and expertise on the microbiome that is available and ready for 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 for the commercialisation of microbiome-related research with industry to help start meaningful conversations and partnerships that can lead to collaborative development and the deployment of new interventions and solutions to prevent diseases by leveraging the microbiome.
How does a Global Challenge campaign work?
Each Global Challenge campaign runs over a six week period, during which we gather submissions from the academic community. During this period and after, 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 issue under focus, for example, major global health challenges or environmental problems. We post each submission on our matchmaking platform and disseminate them to relevant individuals in our network of global R&D professionals, build repositories of the technologies, and create content and papers with our analysis of the engagement trends.
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 our industry campaign partners: Caelus Health, VIC Technology Venture Development, and Colgate-Palmolive.
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.
Why are we running a Global Challenge campaign focussed on the microbiome?
In July 2022, we ran a survey with Inova and Labiotech asking our audiences in the pharma and biotech industries what they thought were the greatest global health challenges we face today. The category with the most votes was pandemics, infectious and emerging diseases, while non-communicable diseases were a close second.
As preventing disease is a broad challenge with countless approaches for solutions, we chose to define an approach corresponding with a growing industry within our networks. Therefore, this next campaign is seeking solutions leveraging the microbiome to prevent disease and improve health, by surfacing the next generation of academic research addressing the issue and delivering these to companies working on aligned solutions.
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.
- 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 academics, research or technology transfer at your institute relating to the microbiome, please share this document with them.
- 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. Eight 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 University Liaison Officer to request their inclusion in our open research directory, white paper, and associated communications around the campaign.
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 Frances Wilkinson. Edited by Anabel Bennett.
Copyrights reserved unless otherwise agreed – IN-PART Publishing Ltd., 2022: ‘Global Challenges campaign FAQs: Leveraging the microbiome to prevent disease and improve human health’
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.
Discover, a bespoke scouting service for open innovation.
Through Discover, corporate R&D teams can leverage our extended academic network, which reaches multiple teams across 2,400+ 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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Image credit: National Cancer Institute, Unsplash