Double Innovation Lab success on Fintech and Healthy Ageing and Technology

22 Feb 2019

Faculty Business Engagement team bring academics and businesses together.

The Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange team have recently hosted two successful Innovations Labs, bringing academia and business together to help initiate co-developed research projects that address a business and societal need.

Creative consultants FutureEverything led the delegates through a number of exercises to identify and shape business challenges which were developed into research projects and pitched to a judging panel for seed funding.

The Fintech Innovation Lab was attended by academics representing Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS), School of Law, School of Social Sciences (SoSS), along with the School of Computer Science, who worked with staff from four companies to identify where our research expertise could address business questions. The winning projects awarded £5,000 were: Equinity, an online investment platform looking to find ways to better engage consumers in pensions; and VW Financial Services with a project to utilise data analytics to manage customer risk.

The Healthy Ageing and Technology Innovation Lab was attended by academics from six Schools across the University including AMBS and SoSS. They worked in five multidisciplinary teams with Bupa, Samsung Healthcare, Unilever, IBM and Alertacall, to develop new research projects, all of which were awarded £4,000 of funding. The Healthy Ageing and Technology Innovation Lab was supported by the MICRA, plus Greater Manchester Ageing Hub (GMCA) and ASPECT, a social sciences platform for entrepreneurship, commercialisation and transformation.

Professor Andrew James, Associate Dean Business Engagement and External Relations, said: “These events have been fantastic for facilitating new partnerships with industry partners that will ensure our academic activity in this area maximises impact on business and society. They demonstrate the huge value of bringing together academic colleagues from different disciplines with businesses to exchange knowledge and co-create ideas.”

Business Engagement describes any collaborative working with non-academic partners, which might include research, teaching, placements, CPD or facilities sharing. For advice and support on any of these activities or relationship building with new partners, contact the Faculty Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Team via the Business Engagement web pages.

The Faculty of Humanities Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Team (BEKE) comprises Professor Andrew James, Associate Dean for Business Engagement and External Relations; Rachel Kenyon and Chris Hepworth, Business Engagement Officers; and Adam Winship, Business Analyst.