SHAPE stands for Social sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy.
Governments, funders and universities are increasingly recognising the unique value that the social sciences, arts and humanities (sometimes referred to AHSS or SHAPE disciplines) can bring, particularly when it comes to addressing big societal challenges. However, the pathways to commercialise such research are often quite different.
What’s different about SHAPE commercialisation?
Whereas traditional STEM commercialisation often focuses on technologies and IP, SHAPE innovations are more likely to be people- or knowledge-based, requiring different approaches to:
How we support academics from those disciplines
How we measure our outputs and success
How we fund innovation and commercialisation activities
How we work with businesses and other stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem
Our history in SHAPE innovation
Oxentia has been a convener and leader in the field of SHAPE innovation and commercialisation since 2016.
Our SHAPE support offering
We support institutions in the development of their SHAPE commercialisation and innovation offerings. From taking your first steps to build skills and capacity, to delivering impact at scale… we offer a breadth of support for both professional services teams, academics, and student entrepreneurs.
Click the boxes below to see more information.
Capacity Building → Delivering Impact
Training:
Building internal skills and awareness for support teams and academics.
- Half-day or 1-day introductory courses
- 3-day ATTP accredited course
- EXPLORE/ADVANCE: Multi-week academic entrepreneurship course
- Sandpits and ‘ideation workshops’ to develop a commercialisation idea
Strategy & Policy:
Ensuring tailored and effective institutional support.
- Review IP policies, process, and systems to identify fit for SHAPE commercialisation
- Develop or advise on templates (agreements/forms) to support SHAPE
- Establishing process and structures to support SHAPE innovation
Research & Insight:
Building knowledge of external practice or internal needs.
- Scoping studies
- Surveys to gather internal or external stakeholder views
- Reports on good practice in SHAPE innovation
- Benchmarking against good practice
KE & Commercialisation:
Support for individual projects, larger portfolios, or pipeline development.
- Portfolio management - identifying potential pipeline opportunities
- Mentoring academics or entrepreneurs
- Market studies (starting at £5k)
- ‘Ideation Workshops’ to develop a commercialisation plan
- In-house (or outsourced) support to SHAPE academics
Programme Management:
Drawing on our expertise and networks, to ensure efficiencies and continuity for your programme.
- Delivery of commercialisation support to SHAPE academics
- Coordinate networks of universities (or academics) involved in SHAPE commercialisation
- Run bootcamps or accelerators for academics and student entrepreneurs
Our SHAPE training courses
Our training brings academics, researchers and knowledge exchange professionals. We support your teams to develop an effective SHAPE commercialisation infrastructure across your institution. From early-stage ideation through to measuring the wider outputs and success of commercialisation activities, you will gain practical, implementable tools, processes, and strategies adapted to develop your SHAPE commercialisation pipeline.
All of our training courses are tailored to your organisational needs and context and include:
Ideation: Engaged collaborators
A challenge-based ideation programme to build collaborations and stimulate ideas for innovation and commercialisation projects; linked to strategic themes of the university.
ATTP accredited training: SHAPE commercialisation
In-person and online training to build awareness of and skills in SHAPE commercialisation. Building the commercialisation pipeline through stimulating discussions and developing actionable plans.
Pre-accelerator: explore & advance
A half-day workshop and optional 6-week pre-accelerator, supporting researchers and commercialisation teams to progress their commercialisation project idea, while building entrepreneurial skills and mindsets.
Impact training
In-person training to build awareness of and skills in impact planning and/or measurement for academics and technology transfer professionals.
Digital for SHAPE workshop
A bespoke course, designed to provide the knowledge and skills to be able to engage with developers, understand how digital can help scale Impact from SHAPE, and build confidence in how to start in your digital journey.
Measuring Social Impact from Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation
Knowledge exchange and commercialisation (KEC) teams are often asked to measure their success in terms of economic impact metrics. This includes income, investment raised, or jobs created from new ventures or collaborations with business. However, KEC activities can have significant value to society beyond their economic impact, and there is a growing interest to measure and report this data (both for SHAPE and STEM disciplines).
Oxentia supports KEC teams and other organisations managing research and impact projects.
Our offerings include
Whereas traditional STEM commercialisation often focuses on technologies and IP, SHAPE innovations are more likely to be people- or knowledge-based, requiring different approaches to:
Training courses and workshops on social impact from KE and commercialisation, for professional services teams and/or academics
Commercialisation support help build a social mission and/or impact strategy for projects or ventures
Consultancy services to help you create an internal framework to track and measure impact from your commercialisation activities
At Oxentia, we have experience in logic modelling and theory of change, impact evaluations, and supporting socially-impact driven commercialisation projects and entrepreneurs. Through our services we can help to answer questions such as:
Our SHAPE Readiness Level Framework has been designed with the needs of impact and commercialisation professionals, investors, funders, and SHAPE innovators in mind, and it aims to establish a shared language and objective criteria across different stakeholders in the SHAPE commercialisation landscape.
“Impact is an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia.”
(UKRI Research Excellence Framework)
Want to learn more?
We work collaboratively with our clients to design a package of support that meets your unique requirements. Contact our team to discuss how we can help.
