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A programme for your researchers

STEAM Founder

This is for you if…

…you are a researcher, technician or student with research or a technical idea to turn into a venture;

…or you lead research, a university or a consortium, and want your researchers to become founders.

CBIT’s flagship programme that turns research into ventures: an AI-first lean start-up journey for researchers, technicians and student founders in science, technology, engineering, the arts and maths (STEAM). Join as a founder, or bring CBIT in to run a cohort for your researchers.

Next step

Founders: apply to join the programme.

Apply to STEAM Founder

One application form for the CBIT Venture Builder’s three pathways

If the form does not open, email cbit.vb@ntu.ac.uk

A cohort for your researchers? Tell us about the project and any funding call.

Email us about a cohort

If your email app does not open, write to cbit@ntu.ac.uk

What you get

  • An AI-first lean start-up journey, starting with technology readiness and research-to-impact
  • A value-proposition bootcamp
  • Business-model variants and growth hacking
  • Commercialisation readiness and data rooms
  • A pitch showcase, then a route into Venture Builder due diligence
  • STEAMfndr, the programme’s platform: matching with market opportunities is done by AI, and it matches research outcomes and competences with new product and service opportunities

Format

  • Cohorts of six phases of two sessions each, or a 5-day bootcamp
  • Cohorts run inside funded projects, or for the university or consortium that hosts them
  • Founders can join from an idea onwards

The AI edition

Turn research into an AI-native venture, with AI in every phase, from the first market scan to the data room.

Examples

  • PriVELT, the NTU continuation grant, EPSRC, 2022–2023. CBIT era
  • Train the Trainer, with CMU STeP, British Council (ISPF) and TSRI, 2025–2026. CBIT era
  • MOSMOP, British Council, 2023–2026. CBIT era
  • UKHAIC, the UK Healthy Ageing Innovation Consortium, BBSRC, 2024–2027. CBIT era
  • The Thai ELP, the STEAM Founders Experiential Learning Programme, 2024–2025. CBIT era

What AI adds

  • Delivered: for the UKHAIC cohort, AI is used to rapidly scan market opportunities, identify problem–solution fit, match partners and capabilities, and test and validate venture models; the programme included AI-supported data rooms.
  • Live: EASE’s Artist Venturing Labs run on CBIT’s AI-Empowered Venture Building method.
  • Owner-confirmed: in the STEAMfndr platform, matching with market opportunities is done by AI.

AI-native outcome: researchers who leave as founders able to run AI-assisted market research, test a value proposition with real customers and keep an investor-ready data room.

Track record

  • 30+

    Thai entrepreneurs hosted in the UK under the STEAM Founder programme

    2024–2026

  • CBIT Venture Builder

    Technology Innovation Champion, 2024

    2024

Source: CBIT figures registry v1.8 (1 October 2026). Figures and sources

Impact story

STEAM Founder

A healthy-ageing research consortium brought CBIT in to turn its researchers into founders

Read the story

Who: The UK Healthy Ageing Innovation Consortium (UKHAIC), funded by BBSRC and led by Nottingham Trent University with the University of Leicester and Northumbria University.

The challenge
The consortium wanted its early-career researchers and technicians to gain entrepreneurial skills and take their bioscience towards impact.
What CBIT did
CBIT ran its STEAM Founder programme for the cohort in 2026, from technology readiness and a value-proposition bootcamp to growth hacking, commercialisation readiness and AI-supported data rooms, ending in a showcase.
What happened
Teams reworked their value propositions and business models, and every team left with a forward roadmap. One venture moved into the flagship CBIT Venture Builder before the programme ended, and others are in CBIT’s due-diligence process.
Where it can lead
Other funded projects do the same: EASE, a UKRI project, and a British Council programme in Thailand also build CBIT’s researcher programme into their work.

This story on the Programme impact page

Where this can lead

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