1M funding to support academics engaging with industry

The College of Life Sciences has successfully secured over £1M from two Medical Research Council (MRC) translational funding schemes: Proximity to Discovery, P2D (£296K) and Confidence in Concept, CiC (£767K).

The funding from these schemes supports the initiation of collaborative research between academic scientists and industry partners in order to successfully drive translational research into ‘real world’ advances in health care.

Both applications were highly rated by the MRC Panel who praised the innovative methods of engagement associated with the P2D application and linkage of projects through initial engagement (from P2D) into project expansion with CiC funding. The combined outputs from these awards have resulted in significant follow on research funding and industry partnerships.

The Proximity to Discovery Industry Engagement scheme encourages the use of creative approaches to reduce barriers between academia and industry engagement for all levels of University staff including postgraduate students, early career researchers, technical and academic staff as well as members of the research and enterprise division.

The Confidence in Concept scheme builds on previous successful applications from the Leicester Drug Discovery and Diagnostics (LD3) team resulting in over £1.3 M of CiC funding since year 2014 which has been used to enhance the University’s translational research capability.

Professor Philip Baker, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Head of College and Dean of Medicine at the University of Leicester, said: “These awards make a real difference to our efforts to engage with industry partners.  Increasingly, in line with the Governments Life Sciences Industrial Strategy, partnerships with industry to translate our Life Science discoveries will be critical to the success of the College."