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For research and university leaders

Venture partner for your bid

This is for you if…

…you are a UK university or consortium bidding to UKRI, Innovate UK, Horizon Europe or the British Council, and your bid needs a partner to run its venture-creation or commercialisation work; or you are a funder behind such a bid.

CBIT as the venture engine in your bid: a named partner that runs the venture-creation or commercialisation work, with CBIT Venture Builder support as in-kind match.

Next step

Bring us in early, at the expression-of-interest stage. Tell us the call, the deadline and the role you have in mind.

Email us about your bid

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

What you get

  • Venture criteria for the project.
  • A researcher-to-founder programme: STEAM Founder cohorts for your researchers.
  • Minimum viable products, built and tested.
  • A showcase, and matching with investors.
  • CBIT Venture Builder support, counted as in-kind match in your bid.

Impact and evaluation work sits in its own service: STEAM Xcelerate.

The AI edition

Put an AI-empowered venture engine into your bid, from researcher cohorts to tested prototypes.

What AI adds

  • Live: in EASE, CBIT leads “Build & Test”, where Artist Venturing Labs develop prototypes, on CBIT’s AI-Empowered Venture Building method. CBIT era
  • Delivered: the researcher-to-founder programme inside bids is STEAM Founder, AI-first, as used for UKHAIC. CBIT era

AI-native outcome: a funded project whose ventures are built AI-native from the first sprint, with Venture Builder support counted as in-kind match.

Format

  • A work package, or a subcontract inside a grant of one to three years.
  • A named role in the bid, from co-applicant to co-director.

Track record

Professor Xiao Ma, CBIT’s Director: BeefTwin £1.2m (Project Lead, Round 1) and EASE £1.2m (Project Co-Lead, Round 2) — the only UK researcher to have won awards in both rounds of UKRI's Cross-Research Council Responsive Mode. EASE is co-led with Dr Iryna Kuksa, NTU School of Art & Design.

  • £5.5m+

    in public funding secured for research and innovation, with partners

    since 2022

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

Impact story

Venture partner for your bid

An art and climate-science consortium brought CBIT in as its venture engine, and won UKRI funding

UKRI’s assessment panel valued the “strong interdisciplinary track record of the proposed team”.

Read the story

Who: EASE (Entrepreneurship, Art and Science for Environmental Sustainability), a consortium led by De Montfort University with Nottingham Trent University, the University of Birmingham and the University of East London.

The challenge
EASE set out to turn artists’ ideas on climate communication into tested prototypes that people could use.
What CBIT did
CBIT leads the “Build & Test” work: Artist Venturing Labs develop prototypes through creative sprints and lean start-up methods, and the project tests them for social, environmental and economic value. NTU adds Venture Builder support in kind.
What happened
UKRI’s panel graded the application Band A, and UKRI funded it in the scheme’s second round. The project is now live.
Where it can lead
Viable prototypes can move into the CBIT Venture Builder, and the partners can bid for funding together again.

This story on the Programme impact page

Where this can lead

  • Fund it together again: a joint grant, with CBIT in the consortium.
  • Into the CBIT Venture Builder: viable ventures from the project can join CBIT’s programme for founders. CBIT Venture Builder
  • Bring the method as well: disciplines that challenge and refine each other’s ideas, from the start. Win interdisciplinary research
  • Show and track the impact: routes to impact, tracked and analysed by AI agents with ImpactTracker. STEAM Xcelerate

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