Innovation

Our transformative research and enterprise will address the world’s most pressing challenges. We will enable and promote a culture of excellence in innovation and entrepreneurship across the University.

Priority one: Impact

We continue to grow and strengthen our impact, knowledge exchange and innovation activity.

At Sheffield we define excellent impact as the lasting, significant and positive change we make in the world through our research, education and innovation.

This definition of impact in its widest sense is important to us and supports us to champion and value the diversity of impact created by individuals, teams and across disciplines.

This year, we have committed to further enhance the impact we make as an institution, with a specific focus on three areas of activity: demonstrating the value of impact from research, education and innovation locally, regionally, nationally and globally; integrating impact into our work from the beginning, through planning and developing strong relationships with mutually interested parties; and fostering an environment for impact by celebrating and recognising the efforts to engage in impact activities alongside the impact delivered.

Working with partners across the sectors is one important pathway to impact. Last year’s Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) confirmed that we are one of the top universities in England for collaborating with business, working with the public and third sectors, commercialising our research and intellectual property (IP) and for public and community engagement.

Building on this success, in May we launched our new Partnerships and Knowledge Exchange Service to develop and strengthen our relationships with non-academic partners.

More recently, we have launched our innovator-focused Commercialisation Journey to accelerate the translation of academic research outputs into commercial ventures, such as spinout companies and intellectual property licences, and to further enhance our partnership with Northern Gritstone - a new investment company to facilitate the commercialisation of university science and technologyrelated IP in the north of England.

Making our mark on the world

We’re curious about the world and know our vital role in creating positive change within it. Our ideas and expertise make a tangible difference to communities, policy, our partners and wider society.

Priority two: Advanced Manufacturing Group

We are developing and extending the Advanced Manufacturing Group model for collaborative working across the UK, and using the approach as an exemplar of good practice across the University.

This summer we announced the largest ever research and development project for the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). COMPASS (Composites at Speed and Scale) will be built as an extension to the AMRC’s Factory 2050 to drive new investment into the UK’s aerospace sector.

COMPASS was the first major announcement of the new South Yorkshire Investment Zone — the first investment zone in the UK — and the University’s expertise in advanced manufacturing was critical in securing it for the region. The new South Yorkshire Investment Zone will build on the success of our region’s Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District, expanding it to include city and town centres in Sheffield and Rotherham to reflect the growing presence of urban start-ups and scale-ups. It will also further our strengths in areas including aerospace, power and energy, life sciences, digital and creative and engineering across all sectors.

Our Faculty of Engineering has entered into a partnership with The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) that will see us appoint two Chairs in fusion research and development. Both roles will establish new research programmes to address global fusion challenges.

We continue to create new courses to meet the skills demands from industry. For example, The Nuclear Scientist and Nuclear Engineer degree apprenticeship has been developed by the AMRC Training Centre with the support of the Nuclear AMRC and industry partners including the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), Westinghouse, Rolls-Royce, Sellafield and Jacobs, to produce graduate professionals who can work across the UK’s current and future civil nuclear programmes.

Priority three: South Yorkshire

We use our excellence in research, education and knowledge exchange to play a leading role in the whole of South Yorkshire, including: its economy; the health and wellbeing of its people and its environment; and its cultural richness and diversity.

Over the past two decades, our research and innovation has helped to transform our region by attracting inward investment and creating highly skilled jobs. With the announcement of the South Yorkshire Investment Zone in July, we are building on our innovation assets on the University of Sheffield Innovation District to help establish the region as the best place to start, scale or relocate a business.

One major development will be the Sheffield Innovation Spine, which will promote and maximise the benefits of clustering innovation-led companies, such as spinouts, in Sheffield city centre through creating incubation and scale-up space in partnership with other city stakeholders.

Working with organisations and individuals across South Yorkshire our Made Together programme has also seen some major successes this year, including the creation of the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre to support the delivery of the region’s net-zero targets, the reinvention of city centre spaces through supporting Sheffield City Council with the delivery of Event Central as part of Future High Street Funding and supporting regional skills and research through partnering with Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals.

Pioneering detailed lung MRI scans without radiation

Our transformative research, enterprise and state-of-the-art facilities at Sheffield are united in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges. Take our new lung scanning technology for example. Led by Professor Jim Wild, a group of Sheffield scientists have developed a novel and safe MRI scan to pick up on lung abnormalities previously undetected with routine tests.

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