The addition of Harper Adams grows Forging Ahead from 15 to 16 institutions, broadens potential for cross-university collaboration and could open new joint business opportunities with researchers and commercial teams from Loughborough University.
Forging Ahead – of which Loughborough University is a founding partner is a major new force in the Midlands’ commercialisation ecosystem, since its inception May last year.
The Forging Ahead partnership is delivering a series of initiatives to support both academics thinking of spinning out companies and the commercial teams based at Loughborough University. These include:
- A Peer-to-Peer learning programme encouraging knowledge sharing between universities, with events taking place throughout 2026
- The ‘Commercial Champions’ network of external individuals with significant expertise who can lead and mentor spinouts
- Expanding across the Midlands through funded places on entrepreneurial training opportunities - such as the Medici Programme - and other commercial pathways, which Forging Ahead is expanding across the region
- Access to the Midlands Ecosystem Platform on Dealroom
Harper Adams’ Collaborative Simulation Laboratory, The Harper Institute of Technology and its 400 hectare Future Farm are just some of the assets that will complement other sites across the Midlands as part of this partnership.
In the past 18 months, the Harper Adams has developed its Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and is soon set to launch Harper Enterprise. This will draw upon the University’s huge pool of industry-ready student talent, as well as the expertise of its staff, to develop further spin-out projects and business opportunities.
With other enterprise teams from different universities being at the core of Forging Ahead, this is a fantastic opportunity to bring in a new member and share learning – all with the aim to support more IP-rich businesses to grow and thrive here in the Midlands.
Forging Ahead Project Lead and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation at Loughborough University Professor Dan Parsons said: “We are thrilled to have Harper Adams University join the Forging Ahead project. It broadens our impact in the West Midlands and brings specialist knowledge in critical areas, developing solutions for food security and sustainable agriculture, for example.
Harper Adams will enhance and extend agri-tech knowledge already in our partnership: from the University of Lincoln’s Institute for Agri-Food Technology to the University of Birmingham’s Plant Science research, to name just a few examples.
I’m excited to see how Forging Ahead can enable Harper Adams both to share and gain knowledge which supports greater commercialisation, all in aid of driving economic growth and impact in this sector for the wider region.”
Alastair Dawes, Director of Business Development and Knowledge Exchange at Harper Adams University, said:
“Joining Forging Ahead will accelerate our ambitions to develop and grow more agri-tech businesses across the Midlands.
“We look forward to collaborating with other members of the partnership to bring impactful levels of growth, innovation and investment to our region.
“Our technical strengths in agriculture - from crops to new product development in food- robotics, AI, automation, simulation, and digital twinning will make us a valuable partner, supporting regional start-ups and other institutions to develop better products and services.”
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The Forging Ahead Project is a new five-year partnership of 16 Midlands universities working together to supercharge the region’s innovation ecosystem.
Through a series of initiatives, Forging Ahead is supporting more spin-out companies to grow here in the region and developing more commercial opportunities for university research.
It is funded by Research England’s Connecting Capability Fund and led by Loughborough University and is working together in collaboration with Midlands Innovation, Midlands MindForge and the Invest in UK R&D Campaign.
The 16 partner universities are: Aston University, Birmingham City University, University of Birmingham, Coventry University, Cranfield University, De Montfort University, University of Derby, Keele University, Harper Adams, University of Lincoln, University of Leicester, Loughborough University, Nottingham Trent University, University of Nottingham, University of Warwick and Wolverhampton University.
Website: Forging Ahead | Loughborough University
Comms contact: Cameron Bonser, C.R.Bonser@lboro.ac.uk