UCL Business in partnership with Healthbox and Numbers4Good launches search for early-stage health social ventures to benefit from Health Social Innovators’ Programme

UCL Business and partners Healthbox, Numbers4Good, Trafford Housing Trust and Janssen Healthcare Innovation, have launched their search for early-stage social ventures to benefit from the Health Social Innovators’ Programme.

With £600,000 of funding from the Cabinet Office’s Social Incubator Fund (SIF), the programme will aim to support the development and growth of early-stage social ventures which have potential to deliver tangible and significant social and healthcare benefits to the public.

Applications are now open to organisations across the UK to become part of the first cohort to benefit from funding and support starting in Autumn 2014. The programme is seeking to identify seven ventures, who will each receive investment of up to £40,000 together with access to mentors, educational workshops and lectures, collaborative workspace and opportunities to present at investors’ days.

The key areas of focus for the programme include mental health, dementia, diabetes, healthy aging and addiction, including alcohol and substance misuse.

Dr Steven Schooling, UCL Business Director of Physical Sciences, Engineering, Built Environment & Social Sciences said “UCL Business is committed to the development of social ventures as a further mechanism to support the translation of UCL and its associated hospitals’ innovative knowledge base into products and services that can deliver substantive benefits to society. We are therefore delighted to be announcing the first call for applications to the Health Social Innovators’ Programme and look forward to receiving proposals from ventures whose activities are seeking to address significant health and wellbeing challenges.”

Applications for the Health Social Innovators’ Programme are now open until 15^th September. To apply, please visit www.healthsocialinnovators.org. Interviews will take place in September 2014.

For more information please contact Ana Lemmo Charnalia on a.charnalia@uclb.com

About UCL (University College London)
Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. We are among the world’s top universities, as reflected by performance in a range of international rankings and tables. UCL currently has 27,000 students from almost 140 countries, and around 11,000 employees. Our annual turnover is nearly £1 billion.

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About UCL Enterprise
UCL Enterprise provides UCL’s structures for engaging with business for commercial and societal benefit. In includes three units: UCL Advances, UCL Business and UCL Consultants, along with corporate and industrial partnerships. Together, they provide access to the capabilities and resources of the UCL community to help businesses start, grow and develop.

About UCLB
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. UCLB has a strong track record in commercialising medical technologies and provides technology transfer services to UCL’s associated hospitals; University College London Hospitals, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the Royal Free London Hospital. It invests directly in development projects to maximise the potential of the research and manages the commercialisation process of technologies from laboratory to market.

For further information, please visit: www.uclb.com or follow us on Twitter @UCL_Business

About Healthbox
Healthbox is the preeminent source of healthcare innovation and drives actionable collaboration between inventors, entrepreneurs and the healthcare sector. Our accelerators offer serious entrepreneurs the candid, unparalleled healthcare industry access and insight needed to succeed in a complex marketplace. We also partner with leading healthcare organisations to advance a culture of idea generation, business creation and external collaboration. With operations in Boston, Chicago, Florida, Salt Lake City, Nashville and London, Healthbox is building a strong, global community dedicated to driving change in healthcare. Healthbox has a portfolio of more than 50 active companies and strategic partnerships with more than 20 healthcare organisations.

About Numbers4Good
Numbers4Good (http://www.numbers4good.com) is a pioneering financial organisation bridging the worlds of finance and positive social and environmental impact.Numbers4Good supports investors, commissioning organisations and social ventures in:

• Social investment: Supporting ventures to raise development funding and connecting investors with opportunities for sustainable financial and social returns;
• Business consulting: Supporting ventures to develop their strategic planning, financial modelling and management capabilities to deliver systemic social impact;
• Financial product development: Creating new financial products – including social impact bonds and social investment funds – to increase the supply of capital to organisations delivering positive social or environmental impact