Enterprise Fellowships

Enterprise Fellowships is a twelve-month accelerator programme designed to support talented researchers and graduates to transform breakthrough engineering innovations into disruptive spinouts and graduate startups.

We have over ten years of experience helping graduates and researchers to take their technology from the lab into the marketplace. Making the transition from academia to entrepreneurship takes knowledge, skills and confidence. With our training, you will find the answers to questions like, which market to target first, how to reach them to start selling, and how to secure investors. Through your mentor, you will receive personalised business advice from a leading engineer in academia or industry drawn from the Academy's Fellows.

We understand that developing a business takes dedicated time, which is why we offer this programme with funding over twelve months to allow you to focus your energies on your entrepreneurship journey. You will build confidence and a network through our unique ecosystem of Fellows, investors, experts and advisors across the UK and internationally.

Through the Enterprise Hub, these connections are with you for life. We support our Hub Members (alumni) community with exclusive events, mentoring, further training, signposting, and introductions that evolve as your career progresses. And best of all, there’s no catch. As a charity, we offer all of our support free of charge - no fees, no IP, no equity taken.

Our impact

If you choose to join us, you’ll be in good hands. Since the programme launched in 2011, we have supported 207 entrepreneurs, who have grown from initial founding teams to companies valued at nearly £700 million. We are proud to have supported graduates and researchers to establish startups and spinouts that have gone on to create more than 1,500 jobs.

£880m follow on funding raised since joining the program

3rd most active UK accelerator in 2022

207 entrepreneurs supported

1,554 jobs created by awardees so far

What does this programme offer?

We are the experts in commercialising engineering research into successful, scalable businesses through a unique package of funding and training: 

• an equity-free grant of up to £75,000 
• 75 hours of training  
• 1:1 business coaching and mentoring from our unrivalled network of the UK’s leading engineers and Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows 
• connections to our network of 100+ investors
• subsidised access to our diversity and inclusion platform Culture+ for engineering startups 
• lifetime access to our co-working spaces in London and Belfast 
• lifelong membership to the Hub’s exclusive events and networking. 

Enterprise Fellowships awardees may also access support from the Royal Academy of Engineering for a UK Global Talent Visa.

Key growth areas

With Enterprise Fellowships, you have a year to invest time and energy into your long-term business strategy and success. Training sessions are delivered as approximately 75 hours of interactive workshops in the first six months of the programme. The content is pitched by the trainers to challenge startup and spinout founders at various levels of business acumen and cover topics in:

• leadership and operations 
• business modelling, value proposition and strategy 
• marketing, sales and customers 
• finance and funding sources. 

The welcome pack provides a list of recommended reading on the theory and practice of starting a business, as an additional resource to awardees who are new to entrepreneurship. By the end of the programme, you will be ready to take your new business to the next level of seed funding and bring your innovation to market. 

Who is the programme for?

We are looking for:

• University researchers wishing to spin out from UK or Irish universities and research institutes
• Recent graduates who want to found a startup
• Non-UK nationals who are about to complete, or have recently completed, their PhD at a UK university

Who have:

• a protectable engineering or technology innovation
• the ambition to lead the business as CEO or COO
• a technology that has been validated in a lab or a relevant environment

Please read our full eligibility criteria and see the Applicant Guidance Notes for more details. If you have any questions, you can email the programme managers directly or join an applicant workshop.

We run online workshops to help you to submit a successful application, open to all potential applicants (including university graduates, PhD holders and academics). 

The workshops will be hosted by the programme managers, and will cover an overview of the Enterprise Fellowships programme, information on the stages and expectations of the application process, and advice on how to submit a strong application. There will also be a Q&A session for you to ask anything further to the programme managers.

16 January 16:00 - 17:00

Register here

24 January 10:00 - 11:00

Register here

3 February 14:00 - 15:00

Register here

13 February 13:00 - 14:00

Register here 

Join a Tech Transfer Officer Workshop online

In addition to our workshops above for applicants, we run online sessions specifically for Tech Transfer Officers. Applicants to our programme will reach out to their commercialisation office for information to complete their application with us. In order to assist all involved, we convene these workshops so that Tech Transfer Officers understand the programme and application requirements. If you work in research commercialisation at a UK or Irish university or research institute, please register to attend a session:

19 February 15:00 - 16:00

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28 February 12:00 - 13:00

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6 March 10:00 - 11:00

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12 March 16:00 - 17:00

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21 March 14:00 - 15:00

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Eligibility by applicant

Researchers only

• You must be a researcher working at a UK or Irish university or Public Sector Research Establishment (PSRE), and have a PhD or equivalent experience, at any level of seniority, from PhD students to professor. If you are a PhD student, your viva must be held before the start the Fellowship or the offer will be withdrawn.
• The university or PSRE must intend to form a spinout in which you will be the CEO or COO, at least in the immediate future. This is not a programme to explore if you want to spin out or not – you should already have decided that is the preferred option for commercialisation, above licensing. The programme does not contractually oblige you to spinout – but that should definitely be your aim.
• The university or PSRE should not expect to have an equity stake in the company that is greater than 50% unless they can demonstrate some form of additional private investment into the spinout, beyond what is normally expected of a host (i.e., grant funding and performing the standard TTO support function do not count as additional investment).
• PhD students are eligible to apply but must receive their viva by 31 May 2025 or the offer will be withdrawn. 

Recent graduates only

• You must have graduated from your very first university degree, of any type, in any subject, and from any university, no earlier than 1 January 2020. If you are still a student, you may apply but must graduate before 31 May 2025 or the offer will be withdrawn.

International PhD students only

• You must be a non-UK citizen, who completed/will complete your PhD viva at a UK university between 1 January 2023 and 30 July 2025.
• You may apply through either the university or Public Sector Research Establishment (PSRE) spinout route (i.e., as a university or PSRE employee commercialising university-owned IP) or the graduate startup route (i.e., self-employed commercialising IP you own). If you are applying under the graduate route, the date of your graduation from your first undergraduate degree does not affect your eligibility.

General criteria 

For applicants

• You must be currently based in the UK or Ireland.
• You cannot be an awardee of our Regional Talent Engines program.
• You are expected to play the leading role in the development of the business, as the CEO or COO for at least the duration of the programme. Our support is only worthwhile if you will be able to put the learning into practice in the immediate future, which can only be achieved if you are in a leading role. 
• You are expected to spend the vast majority of your working time pursuing the objectives of the programme. Academics cannot teach during the programme, but supervising PhDs and supervising research projects directly related to the innovation may continue.
• You can work part-time on the programme if your personal circumstances require, but you cannot hold other forms of employment or pursue other activities. Graduates may have a part-time job to support themselves, as long as it can flex around the diary commitments of the programme.
• You may have been through an accelerator programme before, but should not be on one during this programme.

For the technology / innovation

• You must have a protectable, IP-rich engineering and/or technology innovation which does not solely use existing IP developed by others outside of your team. Engineering is defined in its broadest sense, encompassing a wide range of diverse fields. Combining existing technologies and applying them in a new area does not count as sufficient innovation to apply – there must be an inventive step which is protectable.
• You must have directly contributed to the development of the innovation, either as the inventor or part of the research and development team, and have a clear route to access the necessary intellectual property rights.
• The innovation must be at Technology Readiness Level 4 or above – i.e., proven to work in a lab/ideal environment. As a maximum, it should not be currently available to the market other than as a prototype/minimum viable product with limited sales.
• You must expect to be able to produce a minimum viable product within the next three years, or else you are too early to benefit from what the programme offers and should apply later.

For the business

• The business may or may not be already incorporated. If it has, it must have raised less than £500,000 in private investment, or else we take this as evidence that you do not need our help – see our Shott Scale Up Accelerator programme instead. You may have received any amount of grant funding.
• Applications for socially-driven enterprises are allowed, but they are expected to be financially viable, self-sustaining  and scalable businesses.
• Only one application is allowed per startup/innovation. please select an appropriate lead applicant.
• The startup/innovation must not have been the subject of an application in the previous round of Enterprise Fellowships, nor should an application for this proposal have been submitted on two or more previous occasions.

Selection process

Please read the Guidance Notes for more information on eligibility and what support we provide. We open for applications in January and July each year.

See our Additional Guidance Notes for a full list of application questions and advice on each.

Stage one

Tell us about yourself and your idea so we can assess if you and your innovation are suitable for our programme. It will take about 60 minutes to complete, and if successful we will invite you to stage two. This is an administrative step only – it does not consider how good the idea is or your potential as an entrepreneur, but whether you meet the criteria of the programme.

Stage two

This is more detailed, covering you, the team, the technology and business model. This will be reviewed by a panel of experts drawn from our network, and if successful you will be invited to the third and final stage, to pitch to our selection panel.

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