Aligning Research with Real-World Impact

Life Sciences Partnerships Day on Wednesday 1st October 2025 will be a day of connection, collaboration and innovation bringing together academic researchers, funders, industry and other external organisations to explore how the University of Glasgow’s life sciences expertise can help tackle real-world challenges.

This event is designed to create space for meaningful engagement between Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences (MVLS) researchers and external organisations. Through a combination of keynote talks, industry-led pitches, collaborative workshops, and networking opportunities, the day aims to:

• Showcase MVLS research strengths and ambitions
• Identify opportunities for collaborative problem-solving
• Facilitate conversations around funding, skills development, and translational impact
• Build lasting partnerships to address key societal challenges with a focus on human and animal health, life sciences, and the environment
  

Meet Interface’s Gillian Hambley and Jackie Sanderson at this event.

A one-day event where you’ll hear inspiring impact success stories, meet potential collaborators from other Scottish universities, and explore funding and training opportunities to kick-start your own impact-focused projects.

The IAA Impact Festival is organised by the five Scottish universities with EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAAs): Edinburgh, Strathclyde, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and St Andrews.

Speakers

This year’s keynote speaker is Fran Scott. Listed in The Progress 1000 London’s most influential people, Fran is the Science Content Developer at the Royal Institution as well as being the only female science presenter on CBBC. A scientist by training and an engineer at heart, Fran uses her knowledge to entertain and excite audiences of stage and screen. She is best known for her playful (and often fiery) demonstrations on the CBBC show Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom. With her own production company, Great Scott! Productions, she writes and produces high-octane shows for clients such as Google for Education, Mishkat Science Centre, Siemens and National Grid. Balancing entertainment with education, Fran manages to inject her demonstrations with narrative and humour to make them as enjoyable as they are informative.

You’ll also hear lightning talks from impact leaders at the five organising universities, sharing insights into their projects and the value of partnering with industry, government, and the third sector.

Networking sessions

Meet other researchers from across Scotland and creatively explore opportunities to collaborate through facilitated, structured networking sessions.

Exhibitors

In the exhibition space, you will meet funders and innovation hubs that can provide support for your impact activities. Interface are exhibiting at this event.

Accelerate your HealthTech solution with University of Glasgow’s Evidence Generation Bootcamp!

Building on the success of the inaugural bootcamp last year, the Digital Health Validation Lab is hosting its second edition on Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd of October. This two-day, hands-on event is designed for HealthTech innovators who are ready to accelerate their solutions and drive real-world impact.

In today’s fast-moving and competitive HealthTech landscape, robust evidence is critical to achieving regulatory approval, adoption, scale, and long-term success. This bootcamp provides a practical framework to help you confidently navigate the complexities of evidence generation and build a clear, actionable strategy aligned with your innovation and route to market.

Through expert-led sessions, you’ll gain:

• Clarity on your evidence requirements and how to address them effectively
• Confidence to engage key stakeholders with timely, relevant evidence and navigate complex evidence demands
• A personalised roadmap for evidence generation, tailored to your solution and market strategy
• Improved understanding of approaches to: Patient and Public Involvement (PPI); concept validation; health economic modelling; simulation; technical feasibility and AI performance testing; clinical investigations for regulatory approval; and clinical and cost-effectiveness studies to support adoption.

Who should attend?

HealthTech startups, SMEs, innovation leads, and academic researchers ready to turn a great solution into an evidence-backed, scalable success.

Headline speakers include:

Professor Olivia Wu is a globally recognised authority in Health Technology Assessment (HTA). She holds the prestigious William R Lindsay Chair of Health Economics at the University of Glasgow’s HEHTA and serves as Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy at Mahidol University in Thailand.

Professor Neil Hawkins is a Professor of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) at the University of Glasgow, where he brings decades of cross-sector experience to advancing evidence-based healthcare decision-making. His career spans academia, industry, and consultancy, with contributions across pharmacology, clinical development, epidemiology, and HTA.

Professor David Lowe is an Emergency Consultant at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH), Clinical Director of Innovation at the University of Glasgow, and Clinical Director for Health Innovation for the Scottish Government.

Ticket Price

£295.00 – Early Bird Rate (until 15 August 2025)

£350.00 – Standard Rate (from 16 August 2025)

Please note that registration will close on Friday 19 September.

Overview

This conference is a free, interactive, facilitated event promoting dialogue between academics and voluntary sector practitioners, policy makers and other stakeholders from a broad range of third sector organisations.

Key note speaker: Professor Sarah Skerratt, RSE

The conference will let you:

• Hear from some of the latest third sector research projects
• Discuss findings and share learning around impact
• Meet and network with other third sector researchers and academics involved in voluntary sector-related research

Following the wide-ranging events that take place during Volunteer Week in Scotland in the first week of June, this full-day event will cast a critical eye over the many facets of impact that relate to the third sector in Scotland.

This research symposium is jointly hosted by The Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) and the Third Sector Research Forum (hosted by Evaluation Support Scotland), the University of Glasgow, Youth Link Scotland, Volunteer Scotland and Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO).

Themes for the day include:

• The impact of volunteering and the third sector in different settings, including health, wellbeing and the wellbeing economy
• The impact of small community organisations and place-based volunteering
• How does the sector navigate working with the local grassroots communities?
• How to measure the value of the sector and to understand the place of evaluations and measuring impact in the third sector
• The impact of doing research in collaboration with volunteering organisations and the impact of community led research on research values and ethics

This in-person event is aimed at anyone who does, uses or commissions research about volunteering or community and third sector organisations, in particular:

• Members of the Third Sector Research Forum
• VSSN members
• Third sector researchers
• Academics involved in third sector-related/community-led research
  
  

Join the University of Glasgow’s Living Laboratory programme for its Healthcare Innovation Symposium, where delegates from across academia, industry, and healthcare will come together to explore cutting-edge developments, emerging opportunities, and key challenges in the healthcare innovation landscape.

The symposium will highlight the Living Laboratory’s unique collaborative ecosystem, showcasing the importance of cross-sector partnerships in driving innovation and the adoption of new technologies.

What can you expect?

Attendees can expect engaging sessions around MedTech opportunities and advancements, strategies for generating evidence and its role in accelerating adoption, and insights into Living Laboratory assets and initiatives designed to drive innovation in Glasgow and across Scotland.

The event will introduce the Health Innovation Hub, which is set to further enhance the collaborative ecosystem and strengthen Glasgow’s position as a global leader in healthcare innovation.

Additionally, the symposium will offer valuable networking opportunities and interactive workshops, igniting innovation and nurturing ground-breaking ideas to accelerate innovation into healthcare and improve patient outcomes.

What is the Living Laboratory programme?

The Living Laboratory is a University of Glasgow-led programme that is dedicated to strengthening Glasgow’s position as a leader in healthcare innovation. By working in partnership with researchers, industry, clinicians and the public, they support the creation, refinement, and clinical evaluation of ground-breaking healthcare solutions that will transform patient outcomes.

By fostering a vibrant, collaborative ecosystem, the Living Laboratory is attracting businesses to Glasgow and fuelling the development and growth of local companies. This expanding industry cluster is creating new job opportunities, enhancing skills and driving local economic growth in Govan and Glasgow.

The University of Glasgow is hosting the Scottish Roadshow for DAFNI: Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure on 22nd/23rd October. DAFNI is a computing platform which supports advanced research into national infrastructure, including transport, water, and energy and city scale modelling. All working in these areas with an interest in data are welcome to participate.

Day 1: involves presentations and lightning talks from DAFNI and academics from across Scotland to understand the research being undertaken that has benefitted from, and could benefit from using DAFNI.

Day 2: focuses on the ‘Challenges and Barriers of Data Sharing’. The DAFNI team are looking to collect evidence to inform a future funding case for further investment by government. Researchers, Government, Industry, Policy Makers, Data Sharing Experts, those working with Infrastructure, and the Engineering Community across Scotland are invited to contribute.

For details, and to register visit: DAFNI Roadshow Scotland

Sustainability Insights Live: Is it possible to balance growth with sustainable tourism?

Hosted by the School of Social & Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow, this live in-conversation event will delve into the complex issue of overtourism in Scotland, the UK, and Europe, and the shift towards sustainable tourism models. A panel of experts will provide different perspectives on how to balance tourism growth with environmental and social sustainability, discussing both theoretical questions and practical solutions. Discover the role tourists can play in promoting sustainability, and the challenges this presents for growth.

The expert panel includes:

Dr Anna de Jong : Senior Lecturer in Tourism at the University of Glasgow, and Director of Research within the School of Social & Environmental Sustainability.

Professor Sandro Carnicelli : Professor of Tourism and Leisure Studies and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Culture, Sport, and Events (CCSE) at the University of the West of Scotland.

Lesley Judge: Strategic Programmes Executive at Interface with over two decades experience in working within the tourism sector, works with organisations to build strategic partnerships between industry and academia, and help organisations to innovate.

Amy McCreadie Outreach and External Engagement Co-ordinator for the School of Social & Environmental Sustainability will moderate the event which will take place at the University of Glasgow’s Dumfries Campus.

A one-day event for academics from the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, St Andrews, and Strathclyde. Hear impact success stories, find a collaboration partner from another Scottish university, and access funds for impact collaborations.

The festival will be held on 4 September 2024 at COSLA, Edinburgh Haymarket and will support you to:

• find out more about the opportunities, funding and training available to you to create impact from your research
• become a future impact leader
• network with like-minded researchers from five Scottish universities with EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAAs)

Interface will be exhibiting at the festival please come along and say hello!

The University of Glasgow, in collaboration with Scottish Enterprise, Innovate UK, the Scottish Government, and the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) are putting on an exciting in-person networking and information event to promote the collaborative research and innovation opportunities that Horizon Europe has to offer. Discover how Horizon Europe has transformed ideas into successful projects across various sectors, and how yours could be next.

Horizon Europe is the world’s largest Research and Innovation (R&I) programme, with a budget of over £82bn. The programme runs from 2021 to 2027, and it is open to all types of R&I organisations, including large businesses, SMEs, academia, public institutions and third sector organisations.

The UK has historically been one of the best performers in European Research and Innovation Framework Programmes, and on average successful UK applicants to Pillar 2 and Pillar 3 receive around £450,000 although this figure could be much higher. A key part of Horizon Europe is building consortia with partners around the world, particularly now that UK entities can lead projects.

Howell Davies, Interface’s Head of Strategic Programmes and Funding, will be speaking at this event on “How do you define Innovation for the Food & Drink Sector?”