Venture Insight - Seminar series for Translational Researchers at UCL
Next week, we are running the first in a 3-seminar series to help UCL researchers better understand the suitability of venture capital (VC) as a translational funding option.
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Seminar 1 - "What an earth is going on in a VC's mind?"
- Monday 4th October, 2-3.30pm
Understanding which source of funding is the most appropriate at the right point in time is crucial for accelerating innovation and maximising impact. Knowing how a venture capitalist thinks – not just in terms of what they think of your particular project, but also how they think about their whole portfolio – is important when interacting with them. When interacting with any funder, it’s critical to understand their risk/return profile, their timeframe and their incentive structure. We’ll look at each of these factors for funding in general but more specifically for VC support, examining how a venture investor manages their portfolio and makes decisions about any given project or spinout.
This seminar is an opportunity for you to learn about what motivates VCs and for you to ask lots of questions from UCL’s own in-house venture fund, the UCL Technology Fund. This will enable you to better understand VCs and their behaviour when you interact with them.
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Devices & Diagnostics
CALL OPEN: Impact Fellowship 2021-22 scheme - UCL Healthcare Engineering
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UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering's year-long Impact Fellowship scheme is now accepting applications for its 2021-22 cohort. The Fellowship is open to all UCL researchers whose work is related to digital and medical technologies. Deadline: 6th October 2021
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The Fellowship will build researchers skills and explore ideas such as how to measure impact, how to engage new voices, values of co-production, how to engage with policymakers, how to communicate their research to different audiences and how to work with community groups and patients. The Fellows will receieve personalised training and mentoring, and will also be supported to take part in structured activities and access funding to allow them to practice their new skills.
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Repurposing
Repurposing TIN Seminar: How partnership drives innovation (6th Oct, 2.30-4.30pm)
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In the third seminar of the Repurposing TIN series (next week, Wednesday 6th October, 2.30-4.30pm), our speakers, from industry, biotech, charities and non-profit organisations, will explore how new collaborative models with multi-stakeholder partnerships are being employed to maximise synergy among different sectors and the impact that such models have had in certain fields of medicine (e.g. rare and paediatric disorders and oncology) where drug repurposing plays a prominent role.
We will also discuss what major opportunities and pitfalls to look out for in drug repurposing partnering.
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Small Molecules
Funding opportunity from UKRI - "Develop new approaches to small molecule medicine"
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The MRC-AstraZeneca Centre for Lead Discovery (CLD) aims to support academic researchers in discovering potential starting points for small molecule medicinal drugs.
In this opportunity to research starting points for small molecule medicinal drugs, academic researchers will benefit from unprecedented access to over two million molecules in AstraZeneca’s compound library, as well as its state-of-the-art high-throughput screening (HTS) facilities. The full economic cost of your project, including work conducted at AstraZeneca, can be up to £250,000. MRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.
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Other Translational Funding Opportunities
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MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS) outline
- Submission Deadline: 24th November 2021
The DPFS scheme is a key part of the MRC's Translational Research Strategy and supports the translation of fundamental discoveries toward benefits to human health. It funds the pre-clinical development and early clinical testing of novel therapeutics, devices and diagnostics, including “repurposing” of existing therapies.
The scheme supports academically led projects whose goals are to improve prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of significant health needs, or that focus on developing research tools that increase the efficiency of developing interventions.
The Translational Research Group within UCL TRO provide support for MRC DPFS applications. If you would like to apply, please contact Translational Research Group Head, Dr Pamela Tranter (p.tranter@ucl.ac.uk).
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Sight Research UK Translational Research Award
- Submission Deadline: 30th November 2021
This Translational Research Award supports research projects with a clearly defined pathway to achieving patient benefit. Its goal is to help to accelerate the translation of scientific findings to the early stages of development of new therapies, devices, and diagnostics. Sight Research UK welcome projects that have robust commercial potential, likely to attract large scale follow-on funding from other charitable, statutory or industry funders.
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ACCELERATE Success: Grant Writing for Translational Research
- Wednesday 6th October 2021, 11-1.30pm
In contrast to academic/fellowship grant applications, applying for translational research and innovation grants is all about pitching the end vision and convincing funders that you know what it takes to get there: What is the unmet clinical need? How will you meet this need? What are the project milestones and how much will it cost? For many, the first step to pitching this vision is a written application.
By the end of the workshop, participants will;
- Recognise the important elements of a translational research/innovation grant application
- Recognise how to identify the risks of the project and outline how they will be managed
- Explain how to strategically apply for funding based on the maturity of one’s project and how to link this with one’s project milestones
- Describe how to protect intellectual property when submitting a funding application
- Recognise how to simplify your message for a specific funding call
- Recognise how to improve the likelihood of success by ensuring your application is understood and makes a good impression
- Identify where to find support at UCL.
Although this training opportunity is open to all UCL researchers, we strongly encourage TIN Pilot Data Scheme applications to attend in order to finesse your application for the best chances of success.
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