Archives: Funded Project

All Funded Projects live here.

Train the Trainer

Aspect Members: LSE, University of Glasgow, Queensland University of Technology, University of York, University of Exeter.

What is the project doing? 

This project is designed to support professional services staff tasked with communicating/promoting/supporting knowledge exchange, innovation and its impact for SHAPE researchers within their institutions.  

It seeks to maximise the use of the toolkits and other outputs produced by all CoPs over the first phase of Aspect, as well as supporting the collation of other existing resources within Aspect member institutions, and creation of new resources and sessions where useful. 

This project hopes to give members better knowledge of the resources available to them that can be used when supporting academics, and an understanding of the most effective ways of communicating these resources (and knowledge exchange and innovation more broadly) to SHAPE academics in their institutions. 

Why is this needed? 

The Comms/KE COP has identified some challenges to overcome in the next phase of Aspect, which this project will help address. Firstly, the community is made up of a lot of professional services staff who have comms responsibilities in this area, but a lack of comms experience. Secondly, the outputs from the first phase of Aspect are not as useful as they have the potential to be, particularly for this group. Thirdly, the delivery of training is a core part of Aspect activities, but low uptake for training from researchers continues to be a challenge, and there is limited awareness of the effectiveness of different types of training for the intended audiences. 

How can members get involved? 

The initial phase of the project will be a scoping one- clarifying the needs of the “trainers” and drawing together relevant learnings from across the network. 

Drawing on the learnings from other capacity-building/training projects across the network, the project will focus specifically on the needs of the support staff, rather than the academics/researchers, and think about that challenge of ‘communication’ particularly, how to engage academics/researchers with training programmes and the most effective ways of communicating different types of information.  

If members would like to be involved in facilitated discussions that are being planned around these areas or have projects they would be able to discuss with us in more depth please get in touch with Louise Jones (l.jones2@lse.ac.uk).

Applying social science to early-stage innovation to reduce environmental harms

Aspect members: Zinc, University of Bath, Exeter University, University of Glasgow, University of Greenwich, University of Reading, Teesside University, University of York, Royal College of Art, Queensland University of Technology


What was the project doing?

The project had recruited a Research Assistant with a social science background to lead the preparatory research for the next venture-builder program on reducing environmental harms. They joined the project for three months from 7th March and worked on the development of a research-based Manifesto for their new mission. This reflected insights from both desk research and engagement with academic and other experts, starting with those in their partner organizations. The Manifesto was a key tool in the recruitment of founders to join the venture-builder; it also informed the program of content delivered for those founders.

Why was this needed?

This project aimed to ensure the inclusion in the Manifesto of opportunity areas that reflected priorities and approaches informed by social (as well as natural and physical) sciences. This helped ensure that the next Zinc venture-builder created new environmental start-ups grounded in robust research, including insights from the social sciences.

How could members get involved?

Members could support this project by helping the new RA to identify and engage with relevant research and researchers from their own institutions, both to support the development of a first draft Manifesto and to help review and refine that draft.

For further information, please contact Rachel Middlemass (rachelM@zinc.vc).

Aspect Research Commercialisation (ARC) Accelerator

Social sciences, humanities, and the arts for people and economy (SHAPE) disciplines have historically not received the same level of support and funding for entrepreneurial activity as STEM based projects in terms of entrepreneurial training, ideation, mentoring, and practical support. The government programmes that are available are mostly for STEM based innovation and do not quite fit or support early stage projects with innovation potential from social sciences. The ARC Accelerator (formerly called the SUCCESS Programme) is a first-of-its-kind opportunity specifically designed to help SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts) academics and researchers to develop ideas based on their research into businesses or ventures to help people, society and the economy.

The programme is open to SHAPE researchers (students and alumni are not eligible) from Aspect network members.

The ARC Accelerator is a six-month programme, and successful applicants will benefit from:

  • A half-day’s Business Canvas support session to explore and build out their idea
  • A virtual training bootcamp spread over three weeks, led by industry experts, to develop key entrepreneurial skills
  • Specialised, sector specific training, access to experts who have been there before, investors and key networks
  • Dedicated mentorship support to help validate their idea, develop the business model, and support their pitch for funding or investment
  • The chance to pitch for up to £50,000 in prize money at the final showcase event (subject to funder conditions)

What’s next?

The ARC programme team is actively discussing improvements, including the networks of investors and funders, along with additional business model development training for entrepreneurs. The further procurement of more sector experts to work with academics on topics such as how to sell to local government is also important. The programme team anticipates integrating more of the training content that is traditionally taught in quite a siloed manner and separate from the rest of the entrepreneurial experience in order to help the academic entrepreneurs understand how topics like IP, branding, marketing, and competitive strategy work together and influence the overall business strategy. It is anticipated that the ARC accelerator will continue for two more iterations with a view to expand the number of teams accepted into the programme.

To find out more, please visit https://arcaccelerator.io/

Innovation Fellows

Oxford and Manchester both funded Innovation Fellow programmes with the aim of driving greater academic engagement with the Aspect network and to lay the groundwork for a future phase of Innovation Fellowships that could become a flagship programme of the Aspect Network.

You can read the findings here:

Innovation Fellows Project Report – Manchester’s pilot

Case Studies

Aspect case studies draw together pioneering examples of innovation, entrepreneurship and research commercialisation in the social sciences across the Aspect member network. Showcasing academics and student entrepreneurs who are tackling diverse challenges from mental health to open-source policy, these case studies aim to provide examples of good practice through in-depth stories and views from those who have been directly involved. 

You can view case studies below:

Business Engagement Sector ‘Deep Dives’

The  Business Engagement COP  have led a series of Aspect-funded projects focused on developing good practice in and exploring challenges related to industry and academic engagement in social sciences. These included four sector deep dives, two ‘challenge workshops’, and the BE Ideas Box Pilot Project. 

Sector Deep Dives

While there are a breadth of industries where social sciences (SocSci) can add value, the four sectors chosen as focus points for ‘deep dives’: Creative Industries, FinTech, Legal Tech, and Health Tech. Through workshops, interviews, surveys and research, COP members – together with social scientists and industry representatives – collaborated to develop useful and insightful guidance on how to encourage engagement between academics and businesses in these sectors. 

  • Creative Industries (University of Manchester & University of York) – An investigation into activities between SocSci academics and the creative industries in the Northwest of England highlighted a plethora of activity in this area. The creative industries overall report a value in engaging with academics due to mutual interests and benefits.
  • FinTech (University of Glasgow & University of Bristol) – Interviews with several small to medium companies and workshops with representatives from the sector highlighted an awareness of the value of social sciences but a lack of time, incentives, and knowledge to engage with professor-level academics.
  • Legal Tech (LSE & University of Manchester) – A review of engagement and collaboration between law and industry at LSE and the University of Manchester. Discussions in this deep dive highlighted different approaches at both LSE and Manchester, and perceptions about the value to universities and academics, and law firms
  • Health Tech (Aberystwyth University) – Through interviews, survey, and workshops, this deep dive explores the challenges faced by health-tech companies in the development and adoption of their technologies, and the ways in which collaboration with social science researchers might benefit this process.  Insights can be used to inform an approach to business engagement with the health-tech industry that highlights the valuable contributions social sciences research can make and, in the process, breaks down barriers that are inhibiting further engagement with the field.

Challenge Workshops

  • Funding Challenges Workshop Report: A workshop with COP members explored how funding mechanisms can best fit the needs of social scientists, to ensure that social science businesses engagement is given the same encouragement and recognition as other disciplines within universities and by funders.   
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in SocSci BE: The COP commissioned a small independent review to explore how a sub-set of members are addressing issues of equality, diversity and inclusion in social sciences business engagement. 

Pilot project

  • Business Engagement Ideas Box (University of York):Engagement with the business sector can add real strength to social sciences research activity and deliver significant, measurable and sustainable impact. However, the path from social sciences research, though engagement and partnership building, to the development and exploitation of business and commercialisation opportunities contains many obstacles. This project tackles three of the key challenges: Peer learning, Academic engagement and Institutional support structures. 

Digital Information Literacy Programme for Schools

This project applied the findings from research on political misinformation and digital information literacy to help schools teach their students to spot, stop and prevent online misinformation.

Specifically, the project created a teacher training resource to increase the teachers’ understanding of this issue, enhance the effectiveness of teaching on this subject whilst reducing the time spent on planning, and help to connect teachers with other educators and academic researchers in this field.

Led by the University of Manchester, the approach was three-dimensional. First, they worked with secondary school teachers and other education professionals in the UK to assess the teaching and learning needs relating to the problem of online misinformation. Second, they applied insights from social science research to develop effective strategies for tackling this problem in an educational environment. Third, they worked with the commercial sector to identify the opportunities for the more widespread dissemination of a digital information literacy resource in schools across the UK.

Internationalisation of Aspect

Through this project, links and relationships between Aspect and HEIs in middle income countries (MICs) have been built. The project delivered online training for ECRs and KE professionals on how to engage with international development activity focused on applied social sciences and entrepreneurship; and faculty in the MIC partner institutions. The project also explored the development of an entrepreneurship model for marginalised and impoverished communities in MICs.

Learnings from the Internationalisation of Aspect pilot project can be found within this summary report, by Andre Mostert at the University of Sussex.

What’s next and how can Aspect members get involved?

Aspect member institutions can get involved by encouraging their academics to engage with grantees to potentially collaborate for a multi-institution grant application. If you are interested in engaging further, please contact Andre Mostert at a.m.mostert@sussex.ac.uk

Boardgames Commercialisation

The problem: there is a limited awareness and understanding of how to commercialise board games based on social sciences research.

Many researchers in SocSci are already producing successful, engaging resources for game-based learning, but hit a roadblock when it comes to the challenge of disseminating their product beyond their own institution and generating income. Educational board games based on research are overwhelmingly STEM oriented, likely due to clear avenues to market.

In SocSci, these avenues are less well-known, and any social sciences game that does get commercialised is likely by accident rather than by design.

The solution: the development of resources and tools for game-based learning in the social sciences, using real world commercialisation experience, as a case study.

The Educational Games team devised a two-phase plan to increase awareness and understanding of how to commercialise academic/university-generated games based on social sciences research.

  • Phase I – support the commercialisation of Brave New World (BNW), a game based on law and human rights research from Manchester and Nottingham Trent University. Learnings from this process were then used to inform and develop resources for Phase II.
  • Phase II – the development of an Ed Tech Games Hub that will provide space for a community to engage with resources and tools specifically designed to inform academics, professional services, and industry on the process of the commercialisation of board games based on social sciences research.

What’s next?

The Board Games team has noted key areas for next steps:

• The team are continuing to deliver workshops to get social scientists thinking about how they can bring their research to wider audiences.

• Populate the virtual Hub (available via the Aspect members Platform) with resources and tools to help academics commercialise their research into game-based learning opportunities.

• The post associated with facilitating the labs has switched over to Glasgow. The Game Hub coordinator is working on sustainability of the Hub and assessing other academic games.

How can Aspect members get involved?

Aspect members can sign up to the Games Hub platform through the the Aspect members Platform under “Communities”.

Marketing Toolkit

A set of defined good practice in communications about knowledge exchange in the social sciences – to academics, universities, and private sector stakeholders – can be hard to come by. The communications and knowledge exchange COP (KE comms) recognises that many elements of research communication, business engagement, and entrepreneurship need high quality communication to support success. For the social sciences in particular, these elements are challenging due to a lack of understanding about the potential value of the social sciences to businesses. Many elements of research commercialisation need high quality communications to support them. The Marketing Toolkit project aimed to develop a series of guidance/good practice cases for the communication needs associated with social science commercialisation.


Resources were created to address the challenges described above, primarily via the outcomes of two workshops and corresponding surveys run by the KE comms COP. These workshops were designed to gather good practice, example case studies, and sticking points of communicating the value of the social sciences within academia and as part of academic engagement with business.

  • Workshop 1 discussed how to best communicate the value of social science to partners and organisations outside of universities, but also within and across the university.

  • Workshop 2 explored ways to increase academic engagement in knowledge exchange and commercialisation.


Key outputs from the workshops project are below:

1. A case study template containing a series of questions aimed at helping individuals create case studies for communications and knowledge exchange.

2. A diagram illustrating the stages of communication.

3. A summary of takeaways from the two workshops which includes tips on:

  • Dedicated Social Science Support and Messaging
  • Frameworks to Understand opportunities
  • Role models and visibility through social media
  • Event and themed based opportunities

These outputs have also been incorporated into the Aspect Toolkit, a ‘good practice’ resource that cuts across Aspect’s four COP areas. Explore the Toolkit here.