How UCL Engineering is leading in research, industry and policy

It’s time to shine a spotlight on our Accelerator Member, UCL Engineering. We sat down with Rob Thompson, Vice-Dean in Enterprise and Strategic Alliances Director at UCL’s Faculty of Engineering. With a legacy spanning over 190 years, UCL Engineering has consistently driven innovation and is home to some of the UK’s top-performing engineering departments. As head of strategy in this area, we spoke with Rob about his vision for growing a culture of innovation at UCL Engineering and ensuring the faculty remains a leader in both research and industry collaboration.

Building a world-class innovation team

How can we support our practitioners to be as world-leading at engaging with industry as our research is?

It’s no secret that UCL is a world-leading institution when it comes to academic research. In line with this, Rob aims to support practitioners within the Faculty of Engineering who are developing industrial engagement, ensuring they become as world-class in engagement as the university is in terms of research.

The knowledge exchange, innovation, and impact profession at UCL has been maturing over the last decade, and Rob is keen to ensure that the wider team at UCL Engineering is part of this ongoing acceleration. UIIN offers a space where the team can reflect on what UCL Engineering is already doing, learn from best practices, and bring these insights back into the faculty.

Training is another key reason why they decided to join the UIIN community. Rob shared:

In areas like finance, transferable skills are well recognised – if you’re a banker, you can move across different banks or even into accounting. In innovation and engagement, that sort of mobility is much harder to achieve, which is why it’s so important to focus on developing individuals and building up expertise within the profession.

As such, Rob views UIIN as a place where his colleagues can start their journey in innovation and knowledge exchange, gaining the necessary upskilling to continue growing in this field throughout their careers.

Working together to change the world

The overarching mission of UCL is to conduct world-class research and train outstanding individuals who will go on to change the world. While many universities focus on research and teaching, Rob views innovation and industry engagement as the essential third strand of this braid. For UCL to make a meaningful impact, it is crucial to engage with the outside world. To this end, UCL is currently focused on deepening its engagement with industry and policy, as well as nurturing the quadruple helix.

Our goal is to create the ingredients here at the university to change the world.

Several other factors point UCL in the direction of greater engagement. With the UK university system facing a shrinking pool of funding for research and education, UCL recognises the need to collaborate with industry to diversify the university’s R&D spending. Additionally, there is growing external pressure, as well as internal desire, for universities to demonstrate their impact, and industry collaboration provides an excellent opportunity to do so.

UCL’s success stories

UCL’s Engineering Faculty already has a rich portfolio of success stories stemming from its external engagement efforts. A standout example comes from the field of neuromorphic technology. With challenges in processing vast amounts of data to address complex problems, UCL’s spin-out, Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies, is making strides. Working with industry and government, they are positioning brain-inspired neuromorphic computing as a disruptive technology with the potential to support the UK economy.

Another long-term success involves UCL’s collaboration with Corning, a leader in the fibre optics industry. For over 30 years, UCL’s Electrical Engineering Department has worked closely with Corning to develop new ways of transmitting data through fibre optic cables. Corning highlights the challenge, and UCL researchers push the boundaries of fundamental research to uncover new solutions.

UCL also aspires to be an independent convener, creating a space where academia and industry can meet. Their Petras Consortium exemplifies this aspiration. Led by UCL Engineering and the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Public Policy (STEaPP), this eight-year project brought together 24 research institutions and over 100 industry partners to address the security, privacy, and resilience of IoT devices. The consortium’s work has had a significant policy impact, shaping national strategies and industry practices for emerging technologies.

UCL also has an in-house Department of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Public Policy alongside research and education in the field of public policy, the department connects outputs from across the engineering disciplines with public policy impacts, shaping the societal frameworks that guide the implementation of their technological innovations.

Communicating, balancing and addressing resource constraints

One of the biggest challenges UCL faces as an academic institution is effectively communicating its work to the outside world in a way that invites connections. The faculty is committed to maintaining its blue-sky, academically driven approach – a core strength of the university – however, this characteristic makes it even more difficult to clearly communicate the breadth of its activities to external partners. To address this, the faculty is starting to identify thematic areas where they have the greatest strengths and developing both their expertise and their brand in those areas.

UCL is also working to create a structured method of engaging with industry, without compromising the bottom-up, creative research environment that defines the institution. One way to structure this engagement is to introduce processes and formal structures, but this risks stifling the very flexibility and creativity that the university values. It is, therefore, a constant balancing act.

Industrial engagement is about creating fertile ground to empower our academics to enhance the impact of their research, rather than being very directive on how they should work with industry.

Additionally, UCL recognises the challenge of balancing finite resources. The challenge of securing alternative sources of funding is ever-present, particularly across universities in the UK, as the era of government funding alone is coming to an end. However, this shift also presents an opportunity to rethink how universities can create even more value in collaboration with industry, fostering support for the scientific research and education that underpins innovation.

As the emphasis on innovation grows, it is important to ensure that the core strengths of research and education are maintained. The question remains: how can innovation capacity be expanded without diminishing the significance of research and education in an increasingly resource-constrained environment? 

Looking ahead: Expanding innovation and preserving research integrity

Moving forward, UCL Engineering aims to further develop its ability to quantify and communicate impact. While the value of impact is widely understood, the challenge lies in effectively conveying this value to others, whether to a financial board or external organisations.

Looking to strengthen your university’s industry partnerships?

Discover how to move beyond ad hoc collaboration and build long-term, strategic alliances in our brief Building Strategic and Sustainable University–Industry Partnerships. Drawing on insights from over 15 UIIN consulting projects, this piece offers practical guidance to help university leaders create more resilient, impactful, and future-ready partnerships.

Tasha Day (author) is a former Project Officer at UIIN, where she undertook research activities and created content on a wide variety of topics including entrepreneurship education, sustainability and research valorisation.