Bristol City Council - Invest in Bristol - Universities & Research
The Bristol City Region has four universities: Bath, Bath Spa, Bristol and the University of the West of England. Between them, the universities have 26 science departments. Over 60% of the research work at both the Universities of Bath and Bristol was rated by the 2008 RAE as either world leading or internationally excellent. Collectively, the universities form the third most powerful research cluster in the UK.1
The Universities offer expertise and knowledge across a wide range of specialist research areas and are particularly strong in the following areas:
- Advanced engineering - particularly in aerospace and robotics
- Environmental - especially in geotechnologies, renewable energy and the built environment
- Medical - across many branches of medicine and biological sciences
- Digital technologies - especially in relation to creative technologies and computing
The four universities work with and offer support to businesses, through: consultancy; knowledge transfer partnerships; business innovation and ideas development; business planning; business incubation; technology transfer; patenting and licensing; language training; translation services; providing access to technical services & facilities.
The Universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey have established the SETsquared Partnership to build new businesses and work more effectively with industry. Aims of the Partnership are:
- Generate quality 'spin-out' companies from university-research discoveries
- Support early stage high-growth science and technology companies from the universities' local communities, by providing entrepreneurs with business mentoring, routes to funding and industries, and affordable office space
- Link established companies with university experts and facilities to further their businesses
- Equip students and staff with business skills
The SETsquared Partnership is the UK's largest enterprise collective of 6,500 researchers. The flotation of four spin-out companies since 2002 has created a combined market capitalisation of over £160 million. The Partnership has helped new external ventures to raise over £25 million of early stage funding. It has also raised over £45 million of follow-on funding for ventures in difficult markets, and has succeeded with a number of trade sales. The Bristol SETsquared Centre has seen a doubling of applications to join the programme and a doubling of investment activity into its member companies, seeing over £40 million invested in the last 18 months.
