Research and innovation partnerships are critically important for finding solutions to the many major societal grand challenges we face, yet we lack an understanding of how to build them and make them work.

That is why, working with the US-based University Industry Demonstration Partnership, Tomas Ulrichsen (UCI) and Eoin O’Sullivan (CSTI) from the IfM organised an international workshop looking at what needs to be done to enable partners from across the research and innovation landscape to come together with a sense of urgency to tackle major societal grand challenges.

The workshop assembled approximately 100 senior leaders from US, UK and European universities, public and philanthropic funders old and new, and from major corporates at Downing College, Cambridge for two days of inspirational and insightful fireside chats and panel discussions, energised breakout group discussions, and of course, plenty of networking; all topped off with a wonderful drinks reception and dinner at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Discussions focused on the following topics:

• Opportunities, motivations, and constraints for partners to come together to tackle grand challenges.
• Key issues facing partners when coming together in this way, and how partners can overcome these to deliver greater impacts at pace and scale on grand challenges.
• How universities are working to build their regional innovation ecosystems and how this intersects with tackling grand challenges.
• Ideas and potential solutions for making it easier to come together to advance grand challenge innovations at pace and scale.

We are incredibly grateful to the financial supporters of the workshop, including the US National Science Foundation, Elsevier, University College London, Novartis, and the funders of CSTI (The Gatsby Foundation) and UCI (Research England, UKRI).

Special thanks go to Joscelyn Miller, Matt Haydock from UCI, and Ella Whellams and Lisa Barnett from IfM Engage, who worked tirelessly to deliver a high quality event that delivered beyond our expectations. We’d also like to thank our rapporteurs from across the IfM and University, who kindly volunteered their time to help us to capture insights in breakout discussions.