Gemma Archer, co-founder of Researcher Searcher and Francis Jones, founder of STEM@Home have been selected amongst 233 innovators across the UK to receive support from Innovate UK.

Through the competition, Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency has released £6.2 million in grants to tackle some of the UK’s biggest societal challenges. Depending on the stage of the business, winners have either been awarded a £5,000 grant, plus £10,000 contribution to living expenses or a £50,000 grant. Winners also receive tailored business support to help them grow and thus stimulate the UK economy.

Researcher Searcher (previously Linkovate)

Researcher Searcher is a search engine, using advanced NLP technology to make it easy to find relevant researchers across all disciplines. It aims to speed-up time associated with finding researchers based on their area of expertise, fostering better collaboration, innovation and knowledge exchange.

It's co-founded by Gemma Archer, an epidemiologist and Visiting King’s Research Associate in the Department of Psychological Medicine.

Gemma is an active member of the Entrepreneurship Institute’s Women Entrepreneurs Network, is a former Idea Factory competition winner and also scaled her idea through King’s Accelerator offer.

 

STEMatHome

STEM@HOME provides curated boxes of science equipment for secondary school students to access their science practicals outside the classroom. It aims to save the education system time, money and resources and improve accessibility to high-quality education, by empowering students in their own environments.

It was founded by Francis Jones, a King’s Alumnus in MA STEM Education and an experienced science teacher, who is currently doing a PhD in education research.

Francis Jones was a finalist in the SantanderX and Mayor of London’s Entrepreneur competitions. He was also a finalist in the Foundervine Gamechanger Awards 2023 (Social Enterprise Category) and a finalist in UCL's GlobalEdTech Labs competition.