This 1-day course explores how the two worlds of research and entrepreneurship overlap and how – through the application of a creative problem solving framework – business opportunities in research activity can be identified and progressed. This framework (which is also useful for streamlining the research activity itself) includes a number of tools and techniques that can help nurture a more creative mind-set that may be applied to both business development and research.

Areas covered: -What is an entrepreneur? -What do we mean by creativity and innovation? -The research cycle and how it maps on to the practice of Entrepreneurship -Drivers for innovation -The Entrepreneurial skill set and the elements of business planning -Creative problem solving and the generation of ideas -A simulation on setting up a new business Attendees will gain: -Experience in exploring the business potential of their research in its widest sense (ie the research itself, the tools and techniques of the research, and their own tacit skills & knowledge) -Experience in applying an idea-generation tool to a research field in order to identify new research and business opportunities -Greater understanding of the skills of entrepreneurship and how these relate to research skills -An understanding of the essential aspects of business development -An understanding of visual business planning, including product definition, marketing, intellectual property rights and finance.