About innovation at Surrey

Innovation at Surrey means more than just helping our staff and students to innovate. The University has a responsibility to local, national and global society to make a positive impact for the benefit of all.

Our innovation ecosystem

Our innovation ecosystem is a highly interconnected network of entrepreneurs, investors, suppliers, companies and partners all of whom have a link to the University. Nurturing, protecting and achieving positive impact through this ecosystem is one of our research and innovation strategic goals.

30 years in the making

Over the last 30 years, the University has contributed to the creation of many new businesses and industries in Guildford.  Our success with innovation is made possible not only because of the quality of both our academic research but also because of the investment of time, resources, and funding we put into our innovation ecosystem.

Surrey Research Park: the heart of our ecosystem

Surrey Research Park aerial shot

Since its inception, the University of Surrey has supported knowledge exchange (KE) through collaboration with business and industry, much of which has been facilitated by the Surrey Research Park (SRP). Founded in 1984, SRP occupies 28.5h within the University’s grounds, and supports c170 businesses. Together with SRP, the University’s KE activities contributed c8,500 jobs and made a gross value added (GVA) contribution to the UK economy of £850m in 2018/19, an increase of 3% since 2015/16.

Surrey Research Park has proven instrumental in the creation of the Guildford digital games industry, with 70 companies contributing c1,000 jobs and £64m GVA to the local economy, including via the Park’s own RocketDesk.

 

Our commitment to responsible innovation

Student at the laboratory

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is the concept that research and innovative practices should take into account the wider socio-economic impacts of the work beyond that of simply furthering the knowledge of humanity. As such, the goal should be that we, as researchers, scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs make new technologies work for society, without causing more problems than they solve.”

While there is no definitive set of criteria by which we can judge an innovation is, or is not, responsible, there is a consensus amongst funding bodies, commercial enterprises, and academics regarding general principles that researchers should endeavour to follow.

  1. That innovation should have value for society.
  2. That the innovator should consider all possible impacts.
  3. That the participation of stakeholders is important throughout all stages of the development process.
  4. That there should be transparent governance and oversight for the innovation to be truly responsible.

Our research and innovation strategy

Brain-Getty

Our research and innovation strategy aligns our internal resources and focuses them to generate positive impact for society in a way which is co-ordinated to the wishes of our staff and students; our local community; our regional economy; and the wider world.

Our strategy is an integrated framework, recognising that innovation flows seamlessly from research, and by innovation, we imply broadly all societal benefit that accrues from our research – not only its monetisation, as important as that is.

View our full research and innovation strategy

Our Knowledge Exchange objectives

We define Innovation as making use of Knowledge Exchange (KE) to turn research outcomes into actions that make real world impact.

Our priorities for KE feed into our Research and Innovation strategy and can be summarised into four key objectives:

  1. Scale Innovation: Scale innovation to become a mainstream activity within our academic community by educating, stimulating, and facilitating innovation activities.
  2. KE Pathways: Build upon existing successful KE pathways (such as IP commercialisation and business collaboration) to broaden KE activities to strengthen public and community engagement and policy development, thereby, leading our region in societal and behavioural change as well as product and service innovation.
  3. Innovation Ecosystem: Optimise our Innovation Ecosystem to facilitate external engagement, enabling businesses to boost productivity and prosperity in our region, encouraging investment in R&D, supporting non-business partners to enhance society and maximising student and researcher employability skills and experience.
  4. KE Partnerships: Build new KE partnerships across a wide geography, supporting skills transfer and intelligent investment in future infrastructure and policy, contributing our regional skills to levelling up across the UK.

We make use of our Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) to support our KE Strategy and Scale Innovation activity. Our HEIF accountability statement (PDF) sets out our funding plans to 2025. 

University innovation contacts

Directors of Innovation Strategy

Caroline Fleming

Caroline Fleming

Director of Innovation Strategy (Incubation and Enterprise)

Will Lovegrove

Dr Will Lovegrove

Director of Innovation Strategy (Tech Transfer and Industry Partnerships)

Business Incubation

Keith Dixon

Keith Dixon

Entrepreneur-in-residence

Eman Elattar

Business Incubation Officer

Ian James

Ian James

Entrepreneur-in-residence

Charlotte Watson

Charlotte Watson

Operations & Relationship Manager

Enterprise Programmes

James Hodges

James Hodges

Project Officer, Blockstart Programme

Michael Kohn

Innovation Advisor, SETsquared Scale-up Programme

Brita Terpe

Brita Terpe

Business Coordinator

Industry Partnerships

Dr Winnie Chow

Partnership Manager: China

Student Enterprise

Kate Bray

Kate Bray

SUV and IKEEP Project Manager

Kat headshot

Kat Mack

Student Enterprise Manager

The Technology Transfer Office

Iuean French

Ieuan French

Technology Transfer Manager (FHMS)

Geoffrey Knott

Dr Geoffrey Knott

Impact & KE Manager (FHMS & ECRs)

Will Mortimore

Dr Will Mortimore

Technology Transfer Manager (FEPS)

Faraz Rizvi

Faraz Rizvi

Impact Acceleration and Knowledge Exchange Manager

Will Salmon

Will Salmon

Commercialisation Manager

Elaine White

IP Commercialisation Officer