Edinburgh’s Innovation Career Pathway: Building an entrepreneurial culture

In this episode, we explore how academic innovation can be recognised, rewarded and embedded in university career structures with Kirsty Collinge, Head of Research Strategy at the University of Edinburgh.

We unpack how the University of Edinburgh is rethinking academic career structures to recognise and reward innovation more explicitly. From developing an innovation career pathway across recruitment, promotion and learning development to creating a shared language for innovation across disciplines, the conversation examines how universities can move beyond rhetorical support for entrepreneurship toward a more embedded, equitable and institution-wide model for academic innovation.

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Summary

At a time when universities are under growing pressure to show how research creates value beyond academic publication, career structures are becoming a crucial part of the innovation agenda. Kirsty Collinge, Head of Research Strategy in the Edinburgh Research Office at the University of Edinburgh, has been closely involved in shaping a new innovation career pathway that gives academic innovation clearer visibility, legitimacy and support.

The conversation centres on how universities can move from strategic ambition to practical career change. For Edinburgh, the pathway connects research excellence, commercialisation, external engagement and societal impact through the systems that shape academic life: recruitment, promotion and professional development.

It matters now because institutions are navigating financial pressures, competition for talent and rising expectations around impact, while researchers increasingly want careers that allow their ideas to move into practice.

Why innovation needs a clearer academic pathway

Edinburgh’s innovation career pathway begins with a simple institutional reality: universities need stronger ways to recognise the full range of work that research can generate. Innovation activity can include commercialisation, translational work, external partnerships, impact-building, and entrepreneurial engagement, yet many academic systems have historically made these contributions harder to see.

For researchers, that perception can create uncertainty. Academics may want to pursue innovation, but feel unsure whether it will help them progress or whether it will pull them away from the activities that promotion systems traditionally value. Edinburgh’s pathway is designed to give a stronger institutional signal that innovation can form part of a credible academic career.

For the university, the pathway also supports broader strategic goals. It contributes to income diversification, strengthens the pipeline for impact case studies and helps position Edinburgh as a destination for researchers who want to connect academic work with real-world application.

The result is a career model that links institutional strategy with researcher motivation.

Three strands: Recruitment, promotion, and development

The pathway is built around three connected strands: recruiting people with innovation potential, recognising innovation in promotion and supporting researchers to develop the capabilities needed for innovation-led careers.

Recruitment is the first strand. Edinburgh has developed practical materials to help hiring managers recognise and describe innovation activity in academic roles. These include a job description matrix with examples of innovation activity at different grade levels, a repository of job descriptions and guidance on writing more compelling job adverts for innovation-active candidates.

Promotion is the second strand. Edinburgh has introduced an academic promotion profile focused on external engagement, innovation, and impact. This creates a clearer place for innovation within the criteria used to assess academic progression.

What we want to do is recognise and reward people who are doing innovation properly.

The third strand is learning and development. Edinburgh has developed a competency framework for innovation careers, mapping the skills, knowledge and behaviours researchers may need as they build innovation activity into their academic work.

Together, these strands make the pathway more than a promotions exercise. They create a wider support system that helps researchers understand what innovation looks like, how they can develop in that direction and how the institution will assess their contribution.

Culture change requires infrastructure

Creating a new pathway also means addressing the cultural assumptions that shape academic life. Kirsty highlights that some barriers come from misconceptions: researchers may worry that innovation will become a requirement for everyone, or that new criteria will be added without changes to the systems around them.

For promotion reform to work, the surrounding infrastructure must evolve. Application paperwork needs to reflect innovation activity. Promotion panels need people who understand academic innovation. Criteria need to be supported by processes that make innovation visible and assessable.

That long-term perspective is central to Edinburgh’s approach. A pathway can provide structure, language and momentum, but cultural change depends on repeated signals across the institution. Policies, communications, leadership messages, training and local decision-making all need to reinforce the same direction over time.

Creating a common language across disciplines

A major strength of Edinburgh’s approach is its emphasis on consistency across a large and diverse institution. Innovation can look very different in medicine, engineering, arts, humanities, social sciences or divinity. Some disciplines already use innovation language fluently, while others may engage in innovative work without describing it in those terms.

That shared language matters because it helps different parts of the institution understand one another. It also helps managers support staff whose innovation interests may sit outside the dominant patterns of their school or discipline.

Edinburgh’s consultations showed broad support across disciplines. Even areas where relatively few staff might pursue an innovation-heavy career pathway saw value in having a university-wide structure. For Collinge, this is also an equity issue: researchers should be able to access support regardless of where they sit in the institution.

Irrespective of where you’re coming from, however you’ve supported innovation locally, there’s something for you to tap into if you want to pursue that career path.

Lessons for universities building innovation culture

For other universities, Edinburgh’s experience points to the importance of institutional design. The work began with a small steering group that brought together senior leaders and the people responsible for the resources needed to make the pathway real, including research strategy, HR and commercialisation.

Starting with the right people helped turn a strategic idea into a practical project. It also ensured that the pathway was shaped around the institution’s actual operating environment, rather than copied from elsewhere.

If however much time you think you need, double it.

Time is essential because consultation, buy-in and communication all matter. A university-wide change cannot rely on a single launch moment. Edinburgh used sustained communication through an Unlocking Innovation campaign and continued to embed messages locally so that staff could encounter the pathway in the places where they already engage with institutional information.

Commercialisation teams play a vital role, but innovation culture needs wider ownership. Researchers who already understand innovation may know where to go for support, while those with early-stage ideas may need language and entry points that feel accessible. A successful pathway depends on bringing different institutional actors together around the researcher experience.

Edinburgh’s innovation career pathway shows how universities can make entrepreneurial culture more tangible by embedding it into the systems that shape academic careers. As expectations around impact continue to grow, the institutions that succeed will be those that give researchers clear language, credible progression and sustained support for turning ideas into value.

Ready for more?

If Kirsty Collinge’s insights on recognising and rewarding academic innovation resonated with you, you might also enjoy our podcast episode, Securing the future: Why universities need to stay innovative and engaged, with Andrew Petter, former President and Vice-Chancellor of Simon Fraser University. This episode explores why universities must stay engaged with society, entrepreneurship and community partnerships to secure their future relevance.

Stay tuned for the next episode on this series and don’t forget to follow us on your preferred podcast platform!