INSIGHTS / News

Cardiff University has been collaborating with SETsquared since 2018 as part of the Research England and HEFCW-funded Scale-Up Programme. This programme gave the partner universities the opportunity to work together on activities such as the launch of the the SETsquared healthy ageing innovation campaign at the NHS Expo.

Cardiff University has become the sixth partner of SETsquared, the world’s top-ranked university-business incubator. Cardiff joins the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton, and Surrey and will further strengthen the group’s capability for providing enterprise and innovation programmes for researchers, entrepreneurs and high-growth companies in its ecosystem.

The SETsquared Partnership has an enviable track-record having backed over 5,000 innovators and entrepreneurs since it was founded in 2002. It has helped its member spin-outs, start-ups and scale-ups to raise £2.72bn in investment, generate £8.6bn in economic impact and create 20,000 jobs. Cardiff University joins the partnership with strong credentials in this field as well. With an established reputation for spinning-out successful and sustainable companies, Cardiff is ranked third in the UK for its track record in converting high-quality research to flourishing businesses, by Octopus Ventures’ Entrepreneurial Impact Ranking.

SETsquared Chair, Dr Jon Hunt, Executive Director, Research & Enterprise at the University of Bristol said: “This is an exciting development for SETsquared and I’m delighted that Cardiff has accepted the partnership’s invitation to join us in our future plans to accelerate the growth of our ecosystem, deliver greater impact, develop more entrepreneurial talent and support the development of our region’s economy.”

Professor Colin Riordan, President and Vice-Chancellor, Cardiff University, said: “We are delighted at the prospect of joining a network that has been consistently ranked as the world’s number one university business incubator. We have a shared ethos: to generate positive impact and economic growth from our research activities, grow social prosperity and to give our enterprising students every support with their new business ideas.

“Our alignment with SETsquared coincides perfectly with our investment in the Cardiff Innovation Campus, where our own in-house incubation space – Cardiff Innovations@sbarc – will open this winter. It will add significantly to our existing innovation capacity at the Medicentre on Heath Park, helping us to build on our outstanding track record for turning research into real-world economic and social enterprises.”