A bright new world of social science ventures

21st December 2020

Funded Project:
Aspect Research Commercialisation (ARC) Accelerator

On Monday 9th November at around 2pm, 12 teams from the first SUCCESS cohort crammed onto a Zoom call, ready to pitch their ventures to a panel of three judges and a wider community of academics, universities, research councils and investors from across the UK. For the teams, this was the culmination of 7 months of tireless work – they’d arrived at the SUCCESS programme with nascent ideas to turn their research into ventures and they were now presenting their ventures to judges (and the wider world).

In this article, Chris Fellingham – Venture Manager at Oxford University Innovation and Head of the Aspect Research Commercialisation (ARC) Accelerator – reflects on the inaugural SUCCESS Programme and looks ahead to the next round (when SUCCESS will become the ARC Accelerator).

After 12 fantastic, erudite and bold pitches three teams were awarded funding:

  • VolcanoTech – a Geography based project from the University of Sheffield which has created low-cost monitoring equipment for early detection of volcanic eruptions. Developing country populations are disproportionately close to volcanic sites – a drastically cheaper and simpler detection system could be a gamer changer.
  • Cost Calculator for Childcare Services – from the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, it is an analytics tool that helps Local Authorities make more informed decision (based on research) when choosing support for children in care, helping them to deliver the right level of support at the right time.
  • WallBo – a Psychology grounded project from the University of Glasgow, this venture is producing social robots that use the Hawthorne effect (we behave differently when watched) to encourage children to wash hands – saving missed days off school from poor health.

The prize funding however was the icing not the cake. Beyond the deserved winners, there were a number of brilliant ventures ready to use social science to help society and the economy – covering every sector from Health to Social Care and Government to Finance. Ventures like Sahara Nutrition aim to tackle obesity prevalence in BAME communities through community engaged dietary workshops and training for GPs to provide culturally specific guides. State of the States aims to spread best practice to time-poor policy makers in local government in the US, and Trade Policy Hub provides consultancy and research services to governments and big business to adapt to trade.

These ventures are the first research-backed ventures from the social sciences that bring deep, research-backed understanding to problems or develop researched based tools for new products and services. The timing couldn’t be more important. The vast reservoir of knowledge about our society and the economy needs more routes to effect change and ventures are one of the most powerful tools for operationalising an insight into an outcome.

By providing an accelerator programme – a package of training to a cohort of like-minded individuals – SUCCESS is heralding a new wave of impactful ventures that will emerge from the social sciences.

Now out of the pilot phase, SUCCESS will be the Aspect Research Commercialisation (ARC) Accelerator going forwards. With a growing number of universities now members of the Aspect network, there will be even greater competition for places on the programme. ARC Accelerator’s ultimate goal is to help grow an ecosystem for social science entrepreneurs to grow, to work with industry, government and third sector to tackle tough problems or bring innovative ideas to the economy. The aim of ARC is to build on the lessons we learnt from SUCCESS and build a stronger, richer version to support the next cohort. We are focusing on mentors to help guide the teams, building out our network of industry experts to prepare participants better to take their ventures forward. ARC is due to start on the 20th January before wrapping up in June 2020.

We’re looking for mentors, investors and those who work in innovation in any sector, but especially: Health and Social Care, Government, Environment and International Development.

If you are interested in finding out more about supporting the ARC Accelerator please get in touch: chris.fellingham@innovation.ox.ac.uk.


Explore more

Members only

Train the Trainer 

This is an overview of the methods used to obtain relevant information for the Train the Trainer project.

Members only

Building on ABCs – Phase 3 Expansion: Creating Collaborations

Modular Knowledge-Exchange Training Course that gives insights into processes and requirements to developing business partnerships.

Should we spend more time talking about methods?

This blog by the Methods for Change team, illustrated by Jack Brougham, asks if we should spend more time talking about the methods we use as researchers. Drawing on a recent paper, we suggest that researchers need to articulate why methods matter in creating change to global challenges. We share three creative techniques that we have experimented with across the Methods for Change project that can encourage playful, reflective conversation about methods and their role in galvanising change.

Collaborative Zine Making Method

This ‘How-To’ Guide outlines the Collaborative Zine Making Method used by Professor Sarah Marie Hall from the University of Manchester and developed in collaboration with Inspire Women Oldham. The zine was also created in collaboration with Inspire Women Oldham.

Ready to join
our network?

The Aspect Network welcomes applications from like-minded organisations across the world to become members

Join us in contributing to solutions for the global challenges we encounter. Reach out to us today to discover how the Aspect Network can support you

Join us Member login