King's College London

The SPARK Innovation Fund is a dedicated scheme delivered through King’s Innovation Catalyst (KIC) to support SHAPE‑led innovation at King’s (SHAPE: Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy/Environment). The award helps researchers transform pioneering research into impactful, scalable innovation through funding and expert support, while encouraging cross‑faculty collaboration.

SPARK offers a flexible pathway from early exploration to scale‑up, supporting digital tools, social ventures, creative collaborations, new IP and industry partnerships. Projects are supported through three stages:

• Stage 1: Explore, offering up to £2,500 to test ideas and form new collaborations;

• Stage 2: Develop, providing up to £10,000 to build proofs of concept (PoCs) and early applications; and

• Stage 3: Enhance, awarding up to £15,000 to scale successful innovations through implementation, partnerships and commercialisation.

Funding has been awarded to 13 projects in this first round, spanning seven faculties across the SHAPE disciplines and beyond, including Arts & Humanities (A&H), King’s Business School (KBS), The Dickson Poon School of Law, Social Sciences & Public Policy (SSPP), Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (NMES), Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care (NMPC), and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN).

The first cohort represents a diverse range of disciplines and interdisciplinary collaborations, including:

Weaving Lives Together: A Toolkit and Social Venture Exploration is an interdisciplinary collaboration led by Dr Lauren England (Faculty of Arts & Humanities), Prof Eka Ikpe (Faculty of Social Sciences & Public Policy), Dr Natasha Chilambo (Faculty of Social Sciences & Public Policy) and Prof. Roberta Comunian (Faculty of Arts & Humanities) in partnership with Neem Foundation, Ituen Basi and Tikera Africa. The project builds on a successful 2025 pilot of the Weaving Lives Together (WLT) integrated mental health support, peacebuilding and creative livelihoods intervention for conflict-affected communities in Maiduguri, Northern Nigeria. The WLT intervention was co-created and delivered by King’s researchers, Neem Foundation and Ituen Basi, supported by the One King’s Impact Fund. The SPARK Innovation collaboration aims to consolidate this model into a practical toolkit and to explore a social venture approach to coordinate ongoing craft production and market opportunities in the community. SPARK Innovation Fund support will be used to co-develop the WLT intervention toolkit, deliver specialist training in craft production by Ituen Basi and social venture management by Tikera Africa, and support community consultations, working towards the establishment of a cooperative society in Maiduguri.

Dr Emma Fromberg at King’s Business School has developed Nature’s Playbook: Ecological Design Thinking for a Circular Economy within the Centre for Sustainable Business. The project translates four years of doctoral research into a practical card‑based toolkit that helps business professionals rethink sustainability through ecological principles. The project aims to move organisations beyond incremental circular economy practices by fostering systems thinking and new economic narratives. With support from the SPARK Innovation Fund, the project will scale through executive education delivery, e‑commerce infrastructure, conference engagement, and a translation to Mandarin, expanding international reach and enabling sustained industry partnerships, particularly in China. 

Dr Arthur Galamba (Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy) leads Collabits, an award-winning educational technology platform designed to support formative assessment, active, collaborative and hybrid learning. Unlike virtual learning environments that primarily focus on content delivery, Collabits is designed to support inclusion, interaction, knowledge building, and tutor support. Learners can contribute their own content, engage in structured peer dialogue, provide and receive feedback, build connections between concepts, and collaborate on shared tasks in both face-to-face and online settings. The platform is informed by research and has been used across schools, universities and professional development programmes with thousands of active users.  Supported by the SPARK Innovation Fund, Collabits will undertake co‑design workshops, early platform prototyping and pilot testing with new potential customers. These activities will generate evidence, refine the collaboration model and build the partnerships required for future development and progression toward a fully realised platform. 

Prof Zoran Cvetković (Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences) leads Virtual Sounds, Real Spaces: A Platform for Location-Aware Immersive Experiences, a platform for location‑aware, audio‑led immersive experiences. Working with creative and industry collaborators MagicBeans, Darkfield and The Third Orchestra, the project explores how real‑time spatial acoustics and binaural audio can support free‑roam music and storytelling in XR. It aims to identify design principles, technical requirements and authorship challenges for scalable, repeatable experiences. Through the support from the SPARK Innovation Fund, it will deliver collaborative workshops, early prototyping and testing, generating evidence and partnerships to inform future platform development and progression to a larger‑scale prototype. 

The third round of SPARK Innovation funding is currently open for applications with a deadline of Friday 30 October 2026.