Attendees heard from Dr Mike Lyne, Director of Translation at King's Innovation Catalyst, who delivered a session on building the innovative mindset. He started with the fact that despite universities generating thousand of discoveries every year, only a handful become technologies, even fewer get adopted, and almost none has an impact on society at scale: the challenge is not a lack of idea, but the understanding on how to move from discovery to adoption and impact.
He discussed:
- how translation creates impact
- pathways to innovation
- key behaviours of impactful thinker
- complex challenges and the need for different expertise
- what makes an idea fundable
- the importance of experimentation
- how ideas become impact, and why do great ideas fail
The workshop finished with an Impact Canvas reflection that helped researchers think about which real-world problems they'd like to find solutions for. Some of these ideas fed into later skills and team building session ahead of idea pitching.