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Northern Accelerator is an innovative collaboration between Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, Teesside and York Universities.
It is driving a step change in the commercialisation of research to help address regional imbalance and strengthen the North East knowledge economy.
We bring together academics and business leaders, with a host of funding and support, to form sustainable businesses that create more and better jobs.
At the outset of Northern Accelerator, North East England had the lowest business density in the UK and low levels of private sector R&D investment.
North East Universities’ research also accounts for a significantly higher proportion of R&D spend compared with the national average. Northern Accelerator partners therefore believe we have a responsibility and an unmissable opportunity to commercialise research to support local and national economic growth.
Both the North East and Tees Valley strategic economic plans have ambitious innovation agendas and it’s in this regional context we set out to deliver. Enabled by £4.9m from Research England’s Connecting Capabilities Fund, today’s Northern Accelerator builds upon an initial European Regional
Development Fund programme to embed entrepreneurial business leaders into university start-ups at the earliest stage.
The long-term vision is to deliver sustainable impact, developing an ongoing venture capital fund for university spin-outs and a vibrant community of businesses created through the programme.
Spin-Outs With Some HEI Ownership
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Northern Accelerator has increased the number of spin-outs from an average of 1.8 per year in the five years preceding Northern Accelerator, to an average of 6.8 per year in the five years since its launch in 2016
To date we have
345
Academics trained in impact & entrepreneurship
£1.8m
Invested from our Seed Investment Fund
£4.2m
Awarded to pre-incorporation projects
£102m
Investment Raised by Spin-Outs since 2016
