Partner with the next generation of sustainable materials research and assets
Get priority access to the latest sustainable materials research and assets from academic teams actively looking to partner with industry. Join our free partnering network to view the submissions to our campaign from universities and research institutes worldwide and receive a bespoke report with opportunities matched to your R&D needs and priorities.
Our Global Challenge programme aims to mobilise the academia-industry ecosystem to address a global health or sustainability challenge with a clear demand from industry for technical solutions. Following successful campaigns on water pollution, sustainable plastics, rare diseases, COVID-19, and cancer, our latest Global Challenge focuses on sustainable materials.
Through this campaign, our aim is to start meaningful conversations that support the development and deployment of sustainable material innovations for a circular economy.
How does the campaign work?
As part of this campaign, we are inviting our global academic network (which has embedded relationships in faculties at 2,600+ universities and academic institutes) to share details of their latest commercial-facing research, innovations, and assets in sustainable materials. All of the opportunities submitted to the campaign will be hosted on our online partnering platform, Connect, and behind every project is an academic team actively looking to start new industry partnerships to help progress, develop and commercialise their work.
Connect is completely free for companies to join to review the latest academic innovations. We don’t take any finders fees or success fees, and the conversations started through this campaign and our platforms are hosted exclusively between you and the academic partner.
Engage with our campaign partners
For this campaign, we will be running a series of online partnering events with sustainable materials experts across industry and academia. They will each present their partnering opportunities, technical challenges, and their approaches to academia-industry collaboration, with the view to starting new conversations and partnerships with attendees.
What are industry’s top priorities in sustainable materials R&D?
Join our online partnering events with our industry campaign partners Eastman Chemicals, WestRock, Avery Dennison, and a well-known ecological cleaning product brand. Register your free place today.
How to engage with opportunities submitted to the campaign
If you’re new to IN-PART:
Join our partnering network and connect with the next generation of sustainable materials research.
Set up an account (this takes less than a minute) to view the opportunities on our Connect platform, alongside over 8,000 other live technologies from teams actively looking to partner with industry.
If you already have an account on IN-PART’s partnering platform, Connect:
You can also update your keywords to get new technologies throughout the campaign (and after!) that align with your interests straight to your inbox.
Have your requirements proactively disseminated to our academic network
If you or your team are searching for specific sustainable material innovations let us know what you’re looking for and our team will send you a curated report of the most relevant technologies and assets submitted to the campaign.
By completing this form, your R&D needs and priorities will be distributed to our extended academic network as a shareable PDF document.
Why are we running this Global Challenge campaign?
Our Global Challenge programme works to leverage our online partnering platform, Connect, to accelerate the development and deployment of technical solutions to society’s greatest health and sustainability challenges.
So, what does industry need from academia in order to accelerate progress towards their net zero targets? As we know from previous campaigns, and from activity on our online partnering platform, there remain technical challenges across the life cycles of materials and resources that still require new innovation.
Through our previous Global Challenge campaign on plastic sustainability, which launched in the autumn of 2021, we learned about the most promising research trends and breakthroughs in the space. 61 novel research projects were submitted from 32 academic institutes, and we initiated 64 new conversations between teams in academia and industry. Our partners included leaders in the materials and chemicals industries such as Dow, PepsiCo, Avient, and one.five. We learned that there were technical challenges to overcome in areas such as producing high-quality products from the mechanical recycling of plastics. Also, more research was still needed to be able to produce biobased plastics with equal or superior performance compared to virgin plastics from crude oil feedstocks.
For more information on our Global Challenges campaigns, visit our Global Challenges FAQ.
Campaign partners
As part of this Global Challenge, we are proud to be part of a global community of Official Nominators for The Earthshot Prize 2024, a global environmental prize and platform for impact.
This campaign is being run with support
ASTP are Europe’s premier association of knowledge transfer professionals whose work aims to improve the quality of impact that public research has on the economy and society.
The Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) is a non-profit organisation that connects industry, academia, regions and citizens to transform bio-based feedstocks into novel sustainable products and applications, and create circular bioeconomy ecosystems through investments, innovation and know-how.
The Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) is the leading advocate and voice for the growing U.S. flexible packaging industry. FPA is comprised of manufacturers of flexible packaging and material/equipment suppliers to the flexible packaging industry.
The Material Innovation Initiative (MII) is a global think tank focused on research, knowledge-sharing, and fostering connections to fast-track the development of environmentally preferable and animal-free materials. We work to cultivate a global market for next-gen materials across the fashion, automotive, and home goods industries.
Written by Anabel Bennett. Edited by Joseph Ferner and Alex Stockham.
Copyrights reserved unless otherwise agreed – IN-PART Publishing Ltd., 2023: ‘Partner with the next generation of sustainable materials research and assets’
About 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 2,600+ 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. Sign-up for weekly Discover emails.
