FTMA - Talent Gateway 2024-27

Addressing the priority area: Securing better health, ageing, and wellbeing. Our partners have highly complementary strengths: The lead organisation (UCL) having strong links to nine partner hospitals [three Biomedical Research Centres [BRCs] and an Academic Health Science Centre and Network (UCLPartners)]; University Hertfordshire with the North-Herts Integrated Care System [ICS].

Through the evolving UCL-National Physics Laboratory (NPL) partnership we will access extensive physical sciences capability and precision analytics in imaging, spectroscopy, spectrometry and data. Through our established collaborations with the Stevenage Biosciences Catalyst where many of our spin-outs reside and the life-sciences cluster organisation One Nucleus, we will deliver opportunities for bioscientists to observe and engage with SME's, larger organisations (e.g., GSK, AZ), and the cell and gene therapy catapult.

Award Management. The three principal partners will convene a management/ops board meeting regularly to coordinate activities and share best-practice. Our collaborators join this structure, ensuring engagement from an industry perspective, and evolution of our activities.

Events will be held at each site for maximum engagement, leveraging local infrastructure to support coordination and dissemination of FTMA activities. Opportunities to fund placements/secondments through innovation vouchers will be driven by open calls to all three academic partners and collaborators following an open engagement event. Training activities will be delivered on a cohort basis with places ring-fenced for each partner

Likely Beneficiaries. Initially we will focus on postdoctoral-researchers and technicians, but will also welcome academics and professional services personnel. We intend to form an "Innovation Academy" of beneficiaries and involve them in planning and leading events. Using case studies we will encourage greater participation of the bioscience community across our organisations paying particular attention to our EDI principles to understand and address barriers to engagement.

Potential Collaborators. Through our partnerships, we have access to several extensive networks of potential collaborators: SME's, CDMOs, large industry, catapults, regulators, health professionals, patient groups, TTOs, VCs and Investors. We will engage in a targeted manner making each event as relevant to the target as possible, ensuring the best outcome.