Success Stories - YES to Knowledge Transfer
Lucy and Martin outside the state-of-the-art Information Commons building
at the University of Sheffield
The YES competition can inspire participants to choose a career that is research related, but still maintain links with the science being carried out at the lab bench.
Three past YES participants, from three different universities, Dr Lucy Lee, Dr Amanda Baxendale and Dr Martin Whitaker, are now working together at the University of Sheffield on Knowledge Transfer activities.
Lucy was a member of the regional winning team from the University of Sheffield in 2005. Subsequently Lucy joined the Research Team, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in March 2007 at the University of Sheffield, in a new post funded by the University's Roberts Skills Training Development Grant. As the Postdoctoral Research Training and Development Advisor, she has overall responsibility for the implementation, management, and ongoing development of the School's new Postdoctoral Research Professional Development Programme. Lucy also contributes to the School's strategy for Postdoctoral career development and provides a key contact point for the Postdoctoral Society.
Amanda is currently the Business Development Manager for the Medical School at Sheffield working with companies, universities and NHS Trusts in the Yorkshire Region to identify collaborative projects that will develop healthcare products of the future. Amanda was part of a team from the University of Birmingham in 2004. Amanda says "I had just started a Medici Fellowship prior to the competition and thought that YES would be a good introduction to the commercialisation process; how to transform a commercial opportunity into a viable company. Much of the information I took away from YES became the foundation for my career in knowledge transfer"
Martin was involved in YES whilst he was a PhD student in Nottingham and has been involved in the competition as a presenter, mentor and judge ever since. "The YES competition initially enabled me to be involved in commercialising my own research" says Martin who was Operations Director of the spin-out company Critical Pharmaceuticals Limited for four years. Martin has subsequently moved to head up the Sheffield Medical Innovation Centre assessing commercial opportunities for Biofusion plc emanating from the Medical School at the University of Sheffield "What the competition gave me was real transferable skills that now allow me to be involved in knowledge transfer activities such as facilitating collaborations between the academics, venture capitalists and industry".