How do businesses work with universities?

In a changing world of economic and societal challenges, businesses must evolve, too. Working with a university may hold the key to growth.

Working with a university is no longer an academic exercise – it’s a strategic move toward innovation, resilience, and long-term success.

The strongest partnerships begin with shared curiosity and the drive to help each other reach their goals. Whether you're looking to solve a challenge, recruit talent, or explore new ideas, universities offer a range of practical routes into collaboration, each designed to suit you and your business.

Contents:

1. Benefits of businesses working with universities
2. Partnerships with universities drive innovation through co-designing futures
3. But how do businesses work with universities?
4. Executive education, apprenticeships, and continuing professional development
5. What’s the right route for you?

Benefits of businesses working with universities

But why do businesses work with universities? There are so many reasons why business and university partnerships are the future of business growth.

Collaborations between academic experts and industry partners have the potential to unlock tangible, strategic value, generate new ideas at reduced cost, and solve your business challenges in a lower-risk environment. Collaborating with universities can even attract new funding, raise business profile and show the world that your business is forward-thinking and embracing a changing world.

Partnerships with universities drive innovation through co-designing futures

Involvement from academics, students, and technical experts brings a new energy, new ways of thinking, and a fresh outlook to problems. Sometimes, solving a business problem simply requires a fresh perspective.

Keen to know more about why businesses should work with universities? Find out in our recent blog exploring the benefits of business and university partnerships.

The Newcastle Helix Innovation District is home to a lot of our events for businesses.

There’s not just one way to collaborate with Newcastle University. Our business engagement teams co-design solutions with collaborating businesses, so that every partnership is tailored to their own specific problem and goal.

We work with a wide range of organisations, including businesses of all sizes and across all sectors, including private sector, public bodies, schools, colleges, NHS trusts, charities, and voluntary organisations. Each one of these organisations has its own needs, challenges, and infrastructure, and brings the opportunity for all collaborators to learn and co-strategise solutions. That’s why we offer many different partnership pathways, such as:

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs)

A Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) is one of the most powerful tools for innovation. It brings together a business, an Associate, and university experts to deliver a strategic project. These typically last between one to three years. The Associates are specialised professionals, ranging from high-performing graduates to post-doctoral researchers.

The aim of a KTP is to generate benefits for your business, while also presenting an academic challenge. The Associate works full-time in your business and is supervised by an academic half a day a week.

Supported by funding from Innovate UK, this model helps businesses accelerate growth, gain entry into new markets, develop new revenue streams, de-risk research and development, and embed long-term capability.

In addition, when we work with a business on a KTP, the business will own any intellectual property that the project develops.

Analytical services, consultancy and contract research

Whether you're tackling a technical problem or exploring a new idea, we offer a range of ways for businesses to tap into our expertise.

Consultancy gives you access to our researchers’ existing knowledge – helping you solve problems, validate approaches, or shape strategy. It’s ideal when you need expert advice, but not a research project.

For practical support like lab testing, analysis, or prototype evaluation, our specialist teams deliver high-quality services using advanced facilities. These services are similar to consultancy but more technical in nature, focused on expert application of tools and techniques.

We’ve helped businesses with:

• materials testing
• behavioural insights
• environmental monitoring
• health data analysis
• prototype design and evaluation
• sustainability planning
• digital transformation

Contract research is a more substantial undertaking. Unlike consultancy or technical services, it’s about generating new knowledge through a defined programme of investigation and discovery. In contract research, you’ll work collaboratively with our academics under a formal agreement – ideal for innovation, product development, or exploring emerging ideas.

Whatever your challenge, we’ll connect you with the right people, facilities, or equipment. From one-off tests and expert advice to advanced research and development, our services deliver high-quality insights efficiently – and often lead to deeper collaboration.

The Bioimaging Unit provides a microscopy service for high resolution light microscopy and electrophysiology.

Located at the International Centre for Life, within Newcastle University’s Biosciences Institute, the Genomics Core Facility (GCF) is a state of the art next-generation sequencing (NGS) service provider specialising in single-cell applications.

Newcastle University Farms drive innovation in farming and agriculture through collaboration. Our research covers farming, animal welfare, soil sciences, agri-food systems and more.

The Newcastle Preclinical In Vivo Imaging (PIVI) Facility provides a window into deep structures and functions, aiding researchers in making informed decisions on disease progression and the efficacy and safety of new drugs in models across various areas, including but not limited to, chronic liver diseases, cardiovascular disease, cancer, immunology and inflammation, ageing, and mitochondrial disease.

Access world class laboratories and technical expertise through our Facilities and Equipment.

Co-locate alongside academics, technical experts and students

It is possible for your business to co-locate with our academics and facilities. This can be done on a short and long-term basis.

If we’re undertaking testing for you, it might be helpful to have your team on location and working alongside us. Many of our facilities can accommodate guest teams during testing, including our hyperbaric testing facility, gear metrology unit, and the Driving the Electric Revolution Industrialisation facility.

We also have some longer-term co-location arrangements. These tend to occur where there is a strategic approach to co-development of technology, products and services.

A great example is the Dyson R&D lab based in our School of Engineering. For almost 20 years, we’ve been working directly with Dyson, driving innovation in machine design, power electronics and control theory. Our partnership has helped advance a range of Dyson household products.

Find out more about why Dyson has a R&D laboratory on the Newcastle University campus.

Another example of strategic co-location is our new partnership with Curium Pharma, a global leader in nuclear medicine. Together, we’ve established a diagnostic radiotracer production facility on campus, designed to accelerate access to advanced PET imaging for patients across the North East of England.

A Newcastle University Business School Industry Insights panel discussion.

Licensing and intellectual property (IP)

Want to use emerging technology or co-develop new innovations? Newcastle University has a portfolio of licensable IP, spanning software, technologies, and patented processes.

Our Business Development Managers are experienced, discrete professionals who work with companies and organisations to explore how our IP might be further developed and commercialised. Together, we can develop agreements for the IP to be used. By working together and licensing our technologies to you, we can make a difference to lives, organisations, and products around the world.

The Newcastle University 'In-Part Portal' connects you to our intellectual property.

Spin-outs and spin-ins

What are 'spin-out' companies?

Some discoveries made at the university are best brought to market through the creation of a new business. Spin-outs are new businesses that we create based on intellectual property developed from university research.

Our blog about why we create new businesses explores the work of our in-house company creation team. They turn research into viable businesses, supporting governance, investment readiness, and leadership development.

We also work closely with Northern Accelerator, a regional collaboration between several universities. Its flagship programme, Executives into Business, matches experienced business leaders with promising spin-out opportunities, helping turn world-class research into commercial success.

For investors, spin-outs offer exciting opportunities. You can lead, invest in, or even acquire one of our spin-outs. The University can adjust or sell its shareholding, depending on the strategic fit. Spin-out success stories include:

• FibroFind, acquired by a private equity firm
• Advanced Electric Machines (AEM), which designs sustainable EV motors and has attracted investment from Legal & General Capital, Barclays, and others
• Literal Labs who raised £4.6M in pre-seed funding

What are 'spin in' companies?

A 'spin-in' company is an existing, independent company that strategically partners with a university to leverage the university's research, technologies, and expertise for commercial development, often in exchange for an equity stake in the company. Unlike spin-outs, which are new companies formed around university research, spin-ins are pre-existing businesses seeking to integrate university resources into their own operations.

An example of a ‘spin in’ company in the health and wellbeing sector is Jaw Space. Founded in 2022, the company team of engineers, researchers, clinicians, and designers joined forces with us to build the first digital platform to bridge science, clinical insight, and everyday self-care for people living with temporomandibular disorder.

Recruiting the minds of the future

Looking to inject new skills and fresh perspectives into your business? Newcastle students and graduates offer energy, creativity, and technical know-how. Their curiosity, up-to-date knowledge, and enthusiasm to experiment make them ideal collaborators on innovation, marketing, digital transformation, and more.

You can engage with student and graduate talent through:

• short or long-term placements
• internships
• live student projects linked to real business needs
• graduate recruitment support
• degree apprenticeships that combine learning and working

Connect with our Employer team for opportunities to recruit and engage with our students and graduates.

Workshops are a great way to being business and academics together to assess new products and technologies.

Executive education, apprenticeships, and continuing professional development

Workplaces are changing, and staff need the skills to adapt.

Our Executive Education programmes are designed with busy professionals in mind, whether they’re employed or self-employed. Each programme combines academic insight with exercises so that the learner can apply new knowledge directly to their roles and organisations.

An apprenticeship programme combines workplace training with study and enables employees to develop the skills and knowledge they need (but can't access in-house) to progress in an existing role or transition into a new one.

Our Level 6 BEng Product Design and Development Engineer Apprenticeship is designed specifically for organisations working in electrification and clean tech. It combines workplace training with study over four years, followed by a six-month assessment period. The cost of training is fully funded for the duration of the programme through the apprenticeship levy for levy-paying organisations. Non-levy paying small-to-medium enterprises can access 95% government funding, leaving 5% to be paid as co-investment.

We also offer flexible, sector-relevant Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes that help your workforce grow. From leadership and sustainability to data analytics and digital transformation, CPD makes learning proactive. It’s an ongoing process of lifelong learning that can help you achieve your goals, whatever the industry. It helps a company’s employees to keep their skills up-to-date, and build confidence and credibility. And by encouraging staff development, employers can increase employee engagement, highlight changes to working practices, and maintain high standards.

Innovation centres and networks

Connect with a community of thinkers, problem-solvers, and change-makers in our innovation centres. These sites provide an innovative environment to bring together academia, business, and the public sector to work together on complex challenges in data, ageing, sustainability, and more.

All of these centres and networks have an active programme of events such as talks, workshops and webinars. Joining an event is a great way to take the first steps to making new contacts and finding new opportunities for collaboration.

The National Innovation Centre for Data (NICD) helps organisations gain new skills and innovate through data. The centre works to support businesses and organisations in harnessing the power of their data and becoming more productive.

The National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA)  enables businesses to harness the opportunities related to the longevity economy through human experience, ethics, data, collaboration, emerging technologies and innovative business models.

Our Driving the Electric Revolution Industrialisation Centre (DER-IC) provides industry and academic partners with access to specialist equipment and expertise to support manufacturing innovation, design and prototyping, and packaging to help bring electrification technologies to market.

Newcastle Helix is our city's innovation district, bringing together academia, the public sector, communities, and businesses in the heart of the city.

At the Newcastle Health Research Partnership, we’re investing in early-career researchers, supporting clinicians to pursue academic pathways, and building inclusive, multidisciplinary networks that reflect the realities of modern healthcare.

Diagnostics North East (DxNE) is an umbrella organisation, dedicated to developing the North East of England as a leader in diagnostic development and health innovation.

The NIHR Innovation Observatory is a world leading health and care innovation horizon scanning centre, providing data-driven insights to foster innovation and equitable access to high-quality care.

The NIHR Research Support Service  - delivered by Newcastle University and Partners - provides free and confidential support, advice and expertise for all researchers in England working across health, care, and public health.

What’s the right route for you?

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to business and university collaboration. That’s why there are so many options – so you follow the right path for you and your business goals.

Whether you need deep partnership, fast answers, or new perspectives, Newcastle University could be your partner in progress.

Our Business Development team is here to help you navigate all your options, connect you with the right academic expert, support access to funding, and guide you from your first idea to the final impact.

The key is taking the first step and getting in touch. We’ll then navigate our different schemes and teams for you. Ready to find out what’s possible? Work with us and take your first steps to success.

You might also like

• explore opportunities for business and university collaboration
• find out more about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) at Newcastle University
• learn more about our range of facilities that businesses can access
• explore the Newcastle University 'In-Part Portal', which connects businesses to a range of intellectual property
• find out more about our range of continuing professional development (CPD) programmes