Social Ventures / UCLB News

Health Social Innovators’ Fund receives backing from Cabinet Office

12 March 2014

The Cabinet Office has announced today that The Health Social Innovators’ Fund, a partnership between UCLB, Healthbox, Numbers4Good, Trafford Housing Trust and Janssen Healthcare Innovation will receive £600,000 in funding from the Government’s Social Innovation Fund (SIF). Launched in 2012, SIF provides grants to establish social incubators, which support the growth of social enterprises – businesses with a social purpose – that are in their early phases and need intense support to bring their ideas to fruition.

The Health Social Innovation Fund will provide a formalised structure to support health-focused social ventures that can create social impact. Through the programme, selected ventures will receive seed capital, access to mentors, educational sessions, collaborative workspace and the opportunity to present at investors’ days enabling their ideas to develop and grow and take advantage of social investment opportunities.

Dr Steven Schooling, UCLB Director of Physical Sciences, Engineering, Built Environment & Social Sciences said “UCLB is committed to supporting the development of social ventures as a mechanism to translate UCL’s innovative knowledge base into products and services that can provide substantive benefits to society. We are therefore delighted the Government’s Social Innovation Fund is giving its backing to this initiative. Together with our partners, we aim to identify and support social ventures that can address significant health and wellbeing challenges”.

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Cabinet Office news story

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UCL Business PLC (UCLB) is a leading technology transfer company that supports and commercialises research and innovations arising from UCL, one of the UK’s top research-led universities. UCLB has a successful track record and a strong reputation for identifying and protecting promising new technologies and innovations from UCL academics. It invests directly in development projects to maximise the potential of the research and manages the commercialisation process of technologies from laboratory to market. UCLB supports UCL’s Grand Challenges of increasing UCL’s positive impact on and contribution to Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing.

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