Key Facts
- Imperial has a greater proportion of world-leading research than any other UK university (REF 2021).
- Imperial’s startups and spinouts have raised £930m in the past five years, directly contributing to 6,100 jobs in 2023/24 alone (Enterprise Metrics 2023/24).
- Companies graduating from the Imperial Incubator have an 82% survival rate three years after graduating, compared to the average of 53% across the UK.
Research and innovation are vital to unlocking economic growth across the UK. Sustained public investment strengthens the UK’s world-leading research base, drives productivity, and attracts broader private investment.
To deliver high-quality jobs and stronger regional economies, the UK must act as a connected science and innovation ecosystem. Research-intensive universities like Imperial play a central role - fuelling innovation, skills, and growth through partnerships with industry and communities across the UK.
Our UK Impact Map (coming soon) demonstrates how research-led innovation generates economic activity, enhances quality of life, and creates jobs nationwide.
- Spinning out of Imperial in 2006, Nexeon is a battery materials company that has become a significant player in rechargeable battery technology based originally on research in Imperial’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Nexeon has successfully raised over $300m of venture capital and strategic investment funding, growing to over 150 employees and rapidly expanding its patent and intellectual property portfolios.
- Founded by Imperial academics, Ceres Power grew from an Imperial spinout founded to develop fuel cell research to one of the UK’s leading clean technology companies with Innovation Centres across Surrey, Sussex and Warwickshire. Ceres is listed on the London Stock Exchange, receiving a record order intake of £112m in 2024, and in turn is now investing in partnerships with other university spinouts.
- Co-founded by four Imperial graduates, Ponda has created a product called BioPuff which is a plant-based fibre that can be used as an alternative to goose-down or synthetics. Headquartered in Bristol and with a manufacturing facility in Scotland, Ponda's agricultural practices are focused on regenerating the environment with projects in North Berwick and Cambridgeshire.
- Founded on research from Imperial and the Francis Crick Institute, Myricx Bio is a spinout that has developed breakthrough technology for the delivery of cancer therapeutics. Only founded in 2019, Myricx Bio closed a £90m Series A funding round in July 2024, representing one of the largest Series A funding rounds of all time by a European biotechnology company.
These successes are made possible by a funding landscape that supports excellence-driven research and innovation.
- QR funding enables strategic, long-term research, supports emerging talent, and underpins world-class discovery - making it a model admired globally.
- HEIF provides essential support for commercialisation, entrepreneurship, and start-up incubation - fuelling key Imperial entrepreneurial initiatives like the Enterprise Lab and Advanced Hackspace.
To keep generating national impact, the UK must sustain and grow this commitment to excellence and innovation.
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Imperial's impact across the UK (coming soon)
Find out about how Imperial research is creating impacts and investment opportunities across the country.