From Benchtop to Boardroom: Reflections on Commercialising Deep Tech in the South West and Beyond
Over the past decade, I’ve had the privilege of working at the intersection of research, innovation and entrepreneurship through roles at Capital Enterprise, SETsquared Bristol and the Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre (QTEC). These organisations, each in their own way, have supported some of the UK’s most promising science and technology ventures to move from ideas and academic outputs to scalable, investment-ready businesses.
Much of my work has focused on deep tech and academic spinouts, companies born out of research-intensive environments that bring complex technologies to market, often with long development timelines and considerable risk. I’ve worked directly with founders, research teams, technology transfer offices, funders and public bodies to help unlock commercial value from innovation. I’ve seen incredible successes, but also consistent barriers. As we consider how to ensure the UK remains globally competitive in science and innovation, I believe there is an urgent need to rethink how we support academic entrepreneurship, particularly in regions like the South West.
This blog sets out some reflections and recommendations based on my experience to date, spanning education, IP protection, start-up formation, funding, industry engagement and regional development.
The Untapped Potential of Academic Research
The UK is rightly proud of its research base. We have world-class universities and some of the best minds in science and engineering. Yet the pipeline from research to commercialisation remains patchy, opaque and in many cases, exclusionary.
Too often, researchers aren’t supported, or even encouraged, to think about the commercial impact of their work. Commercialisation remains siloed from research itself, positioned as something only a few “entrepreneurial academics” might pursue. In reality, commercial potential exists across all disciplines and career stages. What’s lacking is education, incentives and structures to guide researchers from the earliest stages of curiosity towards commercial exploration.
One of the most consistent issues I’ve seen across institutions is a lack of understanding around IP. This goes both ways: researchers often don’t know how or when to protect their ideas, while tech transfer offices (TTOs) can struggle to prioritise or evaluate emerging opportunities, especially when understaffed or overburdened.
A different approach is needed to embed engaging education on IP early in their research journey to avoid the traps of publishing research before protecting the IP and to empower the researchers to think about the value of their work they are doing to the outside world, something which is often missing when researchers spend 3+ years with their head down focusing on the minute details of their research projects.
Universities and government should treat IP literacy as a core component of research training, on par with ethics, publishing and grant-writing. This shift in mindset would build confidence and capability within the research base and help unlock more latent innovation from labs across the country.
Going further, allowing those researchers to start to understand the commercial viability of their IP is the next step and at QTEC I saw what happens when this is done well. Through my previously delivered bootcamp programme Launchpad, PhD students and researchers were provided with consistent, practical training in IP, customer discovery, market analysis, business modelling and fundraising to help them think about their research projects in a commercial way. The results were tangible: launching a high number of sustainable, growing companies who are now making real-world impact with companies like Qontrol, Albotherm and Forefront RF all being born out of this programme.
The lesson? Researchers need the tools and space to explore commercialisation to understand the relevance of it and the risks and the rewards of pursuing it all before they are expected to fully commit to life in a spin-out.
Start-up Formation: More Than Incorporation
Creating a company is the easy part. What’s harder, and less supported, is validating the business model, securing initial funding, hiring a founding team and navigating the early rollercoaster of growth.
At Capital Enterprise, we’ve run numerous programmes to support start-ups from academia and beyond, including the Cancer Tech Accelerator, the Turing Innovation Catalyst AI Accelerator and the Funding Readiness Programme. What we know is that science-based start-ups often need a longer runway than traditional tech ventures. They face higher capital requirements, regulatory challenges and slower customer adoption curves.
This is particularly true in emerging sectors like quantum, advanced materials, medtech and deep AI, where the business case may still be forming as the technology matures. For these companies, access to flexible, risk-tolerant funding (such as proof-of-concept grants or convertible notes), mentorship from sector specialists and hands-on business development support is vital.
Government-backed initiatives like Innovate UK’s ICURe programme and Innovate EDGE provide some of this, but provision is inconsistent and often too late. We need earlier, more accessible entry points, especially for researchers outside of golden triangle or Russel Group universities.
Connecting with Industry
Bridging the gap between academia and industry remains a stubborn challenge. While there are some standout examples of strong collaborations (particularly in sectors like aerospace, health and defence), these are often based on pre-existing relationships rather than systematised pathways.
The Scale Up Programme previously ran by the SETsquared Partnership was one of the most valuable interventions in brokering introductions between researchers and industry leaders, not just for sales, but for feedback, joint development and strategic alignment. These conversations often shaped the direction of the spinout, provided early validation and led to pilot projects or co-development agreements.
In my experience, most academics don’t lack willingness to engage with industry, they lack time, contacts and confidence. We should be investing in structured industry engagement mechanisms: regional innovation brokers, shared research-industry sandboxes and cross-sector innovation scouts embedded in universities.
The government’s new Innovation Accelerators and Catapults could play a key role here, but only if they act as connectors and enablers, not gatekeepers or gate-chasers.
The Regional Dimension: Providing a Home
The South West of England, home to Bristol, Bath, Exeter and a host of world-class research institutions, has enormous potential to become a leading innovation cluster. We have strengths in microelectronics, quantum, engineering biology, climate tech and creative technologies. But the support infrastructure is patchy, underfunded and too often dependent on short-term pilot programmes.
We need to build a stronger regional ecosystem that gives founders a reason to stay and scale here. That means:
- More dedicated commercialisation support at regional universities
- Regional seed funds with deep tech capability
- Physical hubs and incubators with access to lab and prototyping facilities
- Strategic connections between local authorities, universities and investors
- Long-term government commitment to supporting clusters beyond London
- A way to secure supply chains optimise operations, manage costs, and mitigate disruptions that can impact their businesses
A particular challenge in the South West is access to capital. While Bristol has seen some great success stories, many early-stage companies still need to look to London for funding. Building investor confidence in regional deal flow requires consistent support, visibility and portfolio performance, which takes time.
That’s why government initiatives must go beyond “challenge prizes” and into sustained long-term investment into infrastructure and ecosystem building. Across the board, they must stop duplicating the effort of well-established and well-connected innovation leaders in regions who are providing phenomenal support to regional start-ups on a shoe-string and instead provide them with the level of funding necessary to allow them to make meaningful change.
We should be doing everything we can to ensure that the innovative businesses emerging from our universities not only launch, but survive and thrive in the regions where their intellectual property was created. This is how we deliver real, long-term impact for the places that invested in the research, trained the talent, and supported early development. However, we are increasingly seeing a global competition for high-growth innovation, with countries like the US, Portugal, Germany and Singapore proactively courting UK spinouts with attractive incentives, access to capital, and soft landing programmes. This “innovation poaching” risks turning the UK into a producer of IP and talent for overseas scale-ups, rather than a builder of its own. To change this, we must strengthen regional ecosystems so that founders have compelling reasons—funding, infrastructure, networks and opportunity—to scale their ventures where they started, driving local prosperity and deliver national growth.
Culture Change: Making Commercialisation a Valued Path
Perhaps the biggest challenge is cultural. In many UK universities, commercialisation is still seen as a diversion from “real” academic work. This creates a chilling effect, especially for early-career researchers who may fear it will impact their progression or credibility should they be seen to go down this route. Five years ago “commercialisation” was a dirty word at Universities, things are improving but breaking this stigma will go a long way to help innovation thrive within the research community.
We need a culture where commercial and societal impact is valued equally to academic impact. That means recognition in promotion criteria, inclusion in REF assessments and celebration of entrepreneurship as a public good.
It also means challenging the outdated view that entrepreneurship is for the “outliers.” As I’ve seen time and again, many researchers are deeply motivated to see their work make a difference. What they need is a system that supports, not punishes, that ambition.
What Needs to Happen Next
To support the next generation of science and tech ventures from across the UK, and especially in regions like the South West, universities and government must work in concert and organisations like Capital Enterprise who have 30+ years experience in supporting the creation and development of start-ups can help.
Some concrete actions include:
- Introduce IP and commercial literacy training as a standard part of postgraduate and early-career researcher development across all disciplines.
- Create national and regional pre-incubation programmes that allow researchers to explore commercial pathways without needing to incorporate too early.
- Provide long-term funding for dedicated innovation brokers embedded in universities, tasked with bridging research and industry.
- Invest in regional innovation infrastructure, including incubators with specialist facilities and access to wraparound business support.
- Launch matched regional seed funds specifically focused on deep tech and university spinouts, tied to key local sector strengths.
- Revise university promotion and research frameworks to properly reward commercial and societal impact alongside traditional outputs.
- Foster networks of peer founders and mentors to reduce isolation and normalise the challenges of academic entrepreneurship.
- Pilot new funding mechanisms such as innovation fellowships that give researchers time and space to develop ventures without penalty.
- Ensure local government and combined authorities are resourced and empowered to act as regional innovation conveners without duplicating the effort of established accelerators and incubators within the space.
- Shift from short-term competitions to long-term cluster building, with accountability, consistency and local leadership.
From Experience to Impact
Working in this space has been one of the most rewarding chapters of my career. I’ve seen researchers transform into entrepreneurs, technologies find their markets and regional ecosystems come to life. But I’ve also seen brilliant ideas stall for lack of support and founders burn out trying to navigate a system that wasn’t built with them in mind.
The UK has a real opportunity to lead in deep science and innovation, if we back our researchers not just with funding, but with belief, infrastructure and long-term support.
If we can reimagine the journey from discovery to deployment, starting with education, through to enterprise and anchored in place, we can create not just more spinouts, but stronger, more inclusive and connected innovation ecosystems across the UK ensuring our talent and innovations thrive here.
The time to act is now.
If you’re interested in talking more about this or how Capital Enterprise can help then please connect with me on LinkedIn / Email
