Data-Driven Entrepreneurship

Opportunities for staff, students and industry partners

What is the Data Driven Entrepreneurship (DDE) Programme?

Financed by the Scottish Funding Council through DDI (Data-Driven Innovation), the University of Edinburgh is hosting a series of programmes to advance data-driven entrepreneurship and support a recovering society. These activities offer huge opportunities to innovative and entrepreneurial students, academics and staff at the University to develop their ideas, build their skills and connect their ideas to the world. There are also opportunities for external digital start-ups and scale-up companies to join programmes like the Accelerator and benefit from the expertise and talent on offer in Edinburgh.

More information can be found on the DDE programme homepage.

Upcoming opportunities

p2i Entrepreneurial Course

Opportunity for Postdocs and suitable PhD students.

Applications are now open for Postdocs to Innovators (p2i), a short online entrepreneurship course to turn you from a postdoctoral researcher into an entrepreneur and jump start your career. p2i is a collaboration between leading higher education institutes and global enterprises across Europe, such as the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and Innsbruck. It is designed to provide business training, skills development and experience to ignite your entrepreneurial spark and transform early career researchers into innovators.

Deadline 7th March 2021.

Venture Builder Incubator

Opportunity for Postdocs, PhD and students from any year.

Could your research spark a business idea that supports the world’s recovery post-Covid? The Venture Builder Incubator helps you develop your entrepreneurial skills, build a team and explore opportunities to transform your PhD research into a real business.

The Venture Builder Incubator offers you a whole host of benefits so you can get your venture up and running and connect your ideas to the world.

These include a £2k grant, links to investors and one-to-one support from Edinburgh Innovation’s network of experts.

For the first time we will also join forces with Heriot-Watt University to generate a wider impact.

At the end of the programme you’ll get the chance to pitch in the Data Driven Innovation (DDI) Cup and be in with a chance of winning a share of £5,000!

Fast Track Executive Director

Opportunity for academics to develop or grow a company at speed, and respond to the increasing innovation demand post-Covid in a way that benefits your research, the University of Edinburgh and wider society. Committing as little as one day a week, this programme will give you the opportunity to form or grow a company in just 6 months, a process that would normally take up to 2 years. Applications for the Fast Track Executive Director initiative will be assessed on a case by case basis. The most promising projects will be allocated funding for their commercial champion. Spaces are limited.

Innovation Manager (Health)

Dr Lawrence Brown BVM&S MRCVS is the newly appointed Innovation Manager (Health) supporting the roll out of the DDE programme across the Easter Bush and Usher Institute DDI hubs.

For more information or an informal chat about the programme, please feel free to contact him (Lawrence.brown@ei.ed.ac.uk).