2024’s Successes and Next Steps for our AHSS and Social Venture Building CoP

1. Best Practice Meets

This year we have already held several online workshops for TTOs and KE professionals exploring key topics in this work.

• Southampton gave us a great example of a dedicated disclosure form to effectively engage academics who may be averse to conventional commercialisation and IP forms and identify the value of their outputs, as well as what a dedicated ‘tech’ readiness scale might look like. Our session on funding looked at developing income and capacity around services to move away from grant dependence.
• The NCACE gave great case studies of creative projects working with outside partners to develop robust commercial initiatives.
• Northampton walked us through their experiences developing new commercialisation services from the ground up including best practice for different academic levels and project types. These will continue throughout 2024 and will always be led by you, our members. 

2. Online Hub and Survey

Here you can find our new dedicated hub for CoP work and the insights we are building. The structure reflects the key areas of practice: Engaging Academics, Technical Practice for TTOs/KEs, Sector Policy and Consultation, and Professional Development. We will be uploading content from our meets as well as templates, case studies and links to resources from across the ecosystem to be a central point of contact to learn about AHSS commercialisation and Social Venture Building. As it develops, it will be a tool for you and run by you. Please get in touch with Arnie King at arnie.king@praxisauril.org.uk if you have any useful resources or comments on our central hub.

We will also soon be launching our CoP survey to cement the nuts-and-bolts insights as well as the needs of our members as we grow our peer network.

3. Next steps 

As well as finishing our online meet series, we will be launching a set of in-person meetings to celebrate the great work of our CoP and decide governance options. Another important aspect of all this work, and the recent successful trial version of Introduction to Social Enterprise training, is the template framework for professional development we are coproducing and delivering. Stay connected to be a part of building the future of practice standards in this area.

Finally, as AHSS and Social Venture Building CoP Coordinator, I am very excited to be representing our network at AUTM’s International Conference in San Diego this month. This is one of the biggest events for Tech Transfer and Knowledge Exchange professionals and a great way to kick off our planning of a global dimension to our knowledge-sharing networks!