Award-winning partnerships shed light on thriving innovation ecosystem in the South-West

Nine flagship projects won awards for their outstanding contribution to society, sustainability and health at the Knowledge Exchange Awards 2024.

The Awards, hosted by Exeter Innovation, brought together business leaders and world-class researchers on Thursday 3^rd October, to celebrate some of the most impactful recent collaborations between government, industry and academia.

Among the winning partnerships – each judged by an independent panel of industry experts, entrepreneurs and executives – were a number of groundbreaking innovations in climate science and medicine. These included partnerships communicating climate risks, emissions, and solutions to the UK government and United Nations (UN), along with medical innovations that are improving the wellbeing of people with dementia and providing new ‘anti-ageing’ treatments.

“This year, our judges were incredibly impressed with the quality of collaborations across the board, with projects influencing the UN climate agenda and providing breakthroughs in medicine that will transform treatments for future generations.”

Chris Evans, Director of Exeter Innovation

The Knowledge Exchange Awards – sponsored by Fraser Nash and Willmott Dixon – followed the University of Exeter’s ‘top quintile’ results in the UKRI’s Knowledge Exchange Framework (the KEF), which measures the ability of universities to share their research, evidence, and skills with non-academic partners. Earlier this year, the University ranked Top 10 globally in the THE Impact Rankings 2024, for its contribution towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

---

Stuart Brocklehurst, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Business Engagement and Innovation at the University of Exeter, and Director of Green Futures Solutions, said: “I am delighted to see these projects receive recognition for their vital work, providing policymakers and business leaders with the evidence, tools and scientific breakthroughs to accelerate our progress on climate, health, and social mobility. At the University of Exeter, we pride ourselves in creating an environment where innovation and collaboration can mobilise to solve today’s most pressing challenges, and we hope to facilitate many more partnerships with our world-class academics in the years to come.”

Speaking about the quality of projects, Chris Evans, Chair of the Judging Panel and Director of Exeter Innovation, said: “This year, our judges were incredibly impressed with the quality of collaborations across the board, with projects influencing the UN climate agenda and providing breakthroughs in medicine that will transform treatments for future generations. These brilliant partnerships highlight our strengths here at the University of Exeter, in connecting partners with our academic experts to create a greener, healthier and fairer future.”

---

Climate and Sustainability Winners

Several winning projects played a key role in communicating climate science to world leaders over the past two years.

‘We Are The Possible’, delivered at COP28 in Dubai and winner of the Sustainable Futures Award, pioneered a new way of engaging people with climate science through powerful storytelling, poems and performances. Involving a network of global partners – from the Met Office and British Embassy to the American University in Cairo and the Emirates Literature Foundation – the University of Exeter-led project reached 28 million people with its message of resilience and hope.

Tied in first place for ‘Knowledge Exchange Team of the Year’ were two equally impressive climate projects. One of these was Global Carbon Budget, which mobilises leading climate scientists and international partners to report on the world’s annual carbon emissions, influencing climate talks at the highest level – including meetings with the UN General Secretary. The other, the 3^rd Climate Change Risk Assessment, informed the UK Government’s own report to Parliament on its progress adapting to climate change, as required by the Climate Change Act.

Elsewhere, the Ground Truth project between University of Exeter and Datatecnics won the Bright Future Award for creating an outstanding AI tool that can prevent water mains failures and is expected to save millions of litres of lost water each year.

---

Winning Breakthroughs in Health and Medicine

The awards also recognised several projects for their outstanding contributions to health, medicine, and wellbeing.

Trailblazing spin-out company SENISCA won the ‘Commercialisation Award’ for their anti-ageing technology, which restores cells to a younger functional state and is being used to advance drug treatments.

Strong competition meant that two projects took home the ‘Health, Wellbeing and Life Sciences Award’. The first, ENLIVEN, revolutionised access to nature for people with dementia working with 11 outdoor providers – including Kew Gardens and Historic Royal Palaces – to make remove barriers to access.

Ranking alongside them, the Citizen Phage Library has been tackling the ‘silent pandemic’ of antimicrobial resistance by providing clinicians and researchers with a library of phages – bacteria that can treat drug-resistant infections.

Promising student Emily Stevenson took home the ‘Student Innovation’ award for her remarkable work with Plymouth Marine Laboratory uncovering the role of microplastics in spreading diseases.

---

Reshaping Social Mobility and Rural Policy

The Exeter Tutoring Model won the ‘Fair, Just and Inclusive Society Award’ for delivering free tutoring to around 700 secondary pupils with a pioneering new model, where University students become tutors by taking an accredited module. After improving pupils’ ability to write accurate sentences by 100%, the nine-week programme attracted praise from Department for Education ministers.

Finally, in an extra, special award announced on the night, the Lifetime Achievement Award went to Professor Michael Winter OBE for his influential work on rural policy and food security. Across a career spanning five decades, Michael has played a major role in transforming the UK’s agricultural sector for the better, working with rural communities, land-users, policymakers and NGOs from Natural England to the National Trust.

Let’s Work Together

The Knowledge Exchange Awards are hosted by Exeter Innovation every two years to celebrate the most impactful collaborations between researchers and external partners across government, industry and the third sector. Each year, the University of Exeter delivers over 2,000 projects with our partners each year, generating over £1.5 billion in value for the UK economy. At Exeter Innovation, our teams drive this activity, by working with organisations to understand their needs and connect them to the world-leading research, education, resources and facilities they need.

The Knowledge Exchange Awards 2024 were made possible thanks to our main sponsors: Frazer-Nash and Willmott Dixon. Sponsors for other aspects of the KE Awards include: Exeter and East Devon Enterprise Zone (Sustainable Futures Award); Greaves Brewster (Commercialisation Award); Warwick Event Services (Production Sponsor); UKRI Open Innovation Fund and Impact Accelerator Account (Event Sponsor).