Innovations Translational Partnership Award (Manchester)

Following on from our current award and informed by a University-wide survey, we will use TPA funding to address four aims: - SUPPORT translational research: by providing direct and indirect support for translational research. - CONNECT across disciplines: by removing barriers between disciplines and creating better links between science, technology and innovation. - INNOVATE with industry: by promoting commercialisation activities and enable collaborations with industry. - CHANGE the culture: by embedding translational research across the University. We will expand the TPA team (with a Support Officer and a Bioinformatician) to tackle translational research bottlenecks and enable the progression of projects along the translational research pipeline. We will directly support investigators with our pump-priming funding schemes and introduce new initiatives to engage early career researchers. We will devise a comprehensive programme of bespoke training for researchers and staff supporting researchers. Working with colleagues from Business Engagement, we will run Innovation Labs, to help researchers and industry partners forge new collaborations with seed-corn funding. Finally, we will directly support activities that facilitate access to patient data/tissues by exploiting the potential of the Translation Manchester Research Network and by developing a tool to enable researchers to identify collaborators across the University and our partner NHS trusts.