Cranfield joins collaboration to support climate startups

The Research England Development Fund has awarded £5 million to the Climate Scaling Collaborative, a collection of leading UK universities aiming to support and scale up UK university startups and spin-outs that are focusing on the fight against climate change.

Led by Imperial College London, the team includes Cranfield University, the University of Derby, the University of Exeter, the University of Leeds and the University of Nottingham.

Each partner university will create a regional hub, providing business support and technical ecosystems designed to specifically aid climate startups. The Collaborative will provide support to 60 startups, and will help them to progress from initial funding all the way through to commercial deployment.

Professor Phil Longhurst, Director of Transport and Energy at Cranfield University, said "The partner universities will build on years of collective experience in business ecosystem development to provide a clear focus on creating the right environment for climate startups to thrive.

"Examples like Imperial's White City Innovation District, Undaunted's suite of innovation programmes, Cranfield's world-class pilot scale facilities, Leeds' Nexus innovation hub, Exeter's Green Futures Solution initiative and Nottingham's Energy Institute show the value of local hubs - pooling their resources and expertise through the collaborative will create even more benefits."

The Climate Scaling Collaborative will get underway in April 2025.

In related news, Cranfield has just been recognised by Research England for its commitment to best practice in commercialising its research. You can read more about that here.