TenU Hosts is a series of events offering opportunities for US and UK policymakers, thought leaders and leading practitioners to hold topical conversations in research commercialisation.

In its fifth iteration, the TenU event will host a discussion on social ventures across the US, EU and UK.

The event will take place on 30th November 2021 at 8-9:30 PST / 11-12:30 EST / 16-17:30 GMT / 17-18:30 CET, and is free of charge.

Like traditional businesses, social ventures come in all shapes and sizes. The difference lies in their aim to balance profit with purpose: these ventures are created expressly to drive social or environmental change, and they seek financial backing that is driven not only by financial but also social and environmental impact targets. This is a refreshing proposition that international tech transfer offices are increasingly embracing, offering social entrepreneurs support to create a business plan, develop a prototype or pilot a service, build a market and secure financing.

In this context, an international panel of leading professionals in the social venture field will address questions such as:

  • What motivates academics, universities and investors to engage in social ventures?

  • What specialist needs, if any, are required by tech transfer to support social entrepreneurs?

  • Social ventures exist in a broad spectrum of possible legal entities – is there an ideal legal structure that universities should seek to support?

  • More broadly, how can social ventures support and further key public missions, such as fighting the pandemic, stemming climate change, and increasing diversity and inclusion?

TenU member Matt Perkins, CEO of Oxford University Innovation will chair the panel, with speakers including:

  • Emma Salgård Cunha, Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Project Lead, Cambridge Enterprise

  • Ian McClure, Associate Vice President for Research, Innovation and Economic Impact, and Executive Director, UK Innovate at the University of Kentucky, and Chair-Elect, AUTM

  • Shivani Garg Patel, Chief Strategy Officer, Skoll Foundation

  • Kaat Peeters, Head, Research Centre for Sustainable Organizations, HOGENT

Register 

TenU is a transatlantic collaboration formed to capture effective practices in research commercialisation and share these with UK and US governments and higher education communities, in order to increase the societal impact of research. TenU members are the technology transfer offices of the University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, KU Leuven, University of Manchester, MIT, University of Oxford, Stanford University, and UCL. The collaboration is funded by Research England.