As Scotland comes together to celebrate its first National Innovation Week, the University of Aberdeen is proud to highlight our ambitious vision for shaping the future of enterprise, entrepreneurship, and societal impact.
We kicked off the week by launching a brand-new course, ‘The Founder’s Journey’, to inspire and help students and staff turn their business ideas into reality. Through this initiative, we are realising our ambition to provide a resource for all new and returning students, to ensure every single one of them, regardless of their discipline or level of study, has an unmistakable entry point into our entrepreneurial curriculum. We are also normalising and nurturing entrepreneurial mindset among our staff to encourage pursuit of commercialisation of research. We have been working hard to respond to the recommendations of the Scottish Government’s Entrepreneurial Campus Blueprint over the last two years and it is testament to colleagues’ commitment that we have been able to achieve this universal offer for September 2025.
Rooted in our foundational purpose of serving others, our Innovation Strategy, created to support delivery of both the Scottish Government Innovation Strategy [MDHM1] and our Regional Economic Strategy, in line with our 5-year KEIF strategy, is designed to underpin transformation of ideas into real-world solutions that enhance quality of life, drive sustainability, and support economic growth regionally, nationally, and globally.
Innovation in the service of others
Our strategy is built around five core pillars: People, Place, Partnership, Process, and Platform. Together, these guide our activities and programmes for both students and staff, foster industry collaborations, and provide the infrastructure to support bold, impactful ventures.
- People – Empowering students and staff to develop entrepreneurial skills through programmes such as our ESBF-supported ‘Lightbulb’ Ideas Competition, Student Summer Take-Off Accelerator, the Innovate UK ICURe programme and our Entrepreneurs in Residence.
- Place – Aligning our activity with Scotland’s regional economic priorities, being a partner and co-signatory within the North East Scotland Investment Zone and envisioning environments like the King’s Innovation Quarter (KiQ), [MDHM2] a future hub for university-business co-location and collaboration in the heart of our Old Aberdeen campus.
- Partnership – Working closely with regional (such as Opportunity North East and Energy Transition Zone) and national organisations to amplify resources, avoid duplication, and accelerate progress in areas of focus, specifically green energy, digital technologies, life sciences, and food, drink and agriculture, aligning with regional priorities and the North East Scotland Investment Zone.
- Process – Simplifying how new businesses are created from the University by adopting a “founder friendly” approach, including a revised Intellectual Property, Equity and Revenue Sharing Policy that reduces our equity stake in new spinouts to as low as 5%. More here.
- Platform – Building the digital, physical, and human infrastructure that supports entrepreneurship, from incubating startups to powering collaborative research, including our monthly breakfasts and ABVentures!
Supporting Scotland’s next generation of innovators
The University is home to inspiring new ventures that showcase Scotland’s innovation strength. Recent examples of spin-outs include:
- Brigid Bio, founded by Professor Carol Munro with Dr Soumya Palliyil and Professor Andy Porter, is pioneering antibody treatments to fight life-threatening fungal infections.
- Hychor, founded by Dr Jani Shibuya, is developing groundbreaking technology to produce clean hydrogen directly from seawater—an innovation with global potential.
We have also seen student success with CAnswer BioSolutions Limited, a company led by one of our graduates, Dr Soham Mitra, to develop an innovative portable biopsy kit for community use, and AI based cancer diagnostic software to help the surgeons and pathologists reduce diagnostic waiting times and cut the dependence on operating theatres.
These success stories illustrate the University’s role in supporting and promoting transformative ideas that move from labs to markets, delivering solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges.
Looking ahead
As Scotland celebrates National Innovation Week, we reaffirm our commitment to enterprise, creativity, and collaboration. By empowering people, building partnerships, and fostering a culture of innovation, the University of Aberdeen is building on its reputation of helping to shape a future where ideas thrive and impact lasts for generations.
