An innovation ecosystem

The Nexus Innovation Centre at UL offers start-ups an incubation space and support, aligned with the college’s research resources

THE NEWLY established Nexus Innovation Centre at the University of Limerick (UL) is unique in its approach to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. “It’s not just an incubator or enterprise centre”, says UL research vice president Dr Mary Shire. “It’s going to be the flagship for our engagement with industry. It gives space to spin-out and spin-in companies to engage with the academic community here at the university, with each other, and the broader enterprise community in the region. It’s about bringing all the right ingredients together to create an innovation ecosystem.”

The centre offers dedicated business incubation space and support services for start-up companies whose activities are aligned with UL research strengths. It provides dedicated units for supporting new technology-based businesses together with two fully equipped research laboratory suites, boardrooms, meeting rooms and ancillary support services.

The aim of Nexus is to enable the accelerated development of national and international start-ups with global reach and the commercialisation of academic research resulting in the creation of new jobs.

“It also gives a road map to the start-up companies and entrepreneurs for accessing the resources of the university”, adds Dr Shire. “They will be able to see all the research going on here and use the infrastructure of the university, such as our libraries and so on.

“They will also be able to talk to the other innovators there and learn from them. The centre will facilitate the transformation of new knowledge into commercially viable opportunities and become a hub around which regional innovation is driven, organised and supported.”

It is hoped the centre will support the start-up and growth of 35 new high potential start-up (HPSU) companies between 2011 and 2016, generating over 115 new high-value jobs. There is a maximum stay at the centre of two years and eight months after which the companies are expected to move on, making space for others to take their place. However, the Nexus concept is one where the companies never really leave.

“We don’t just rent out space to start-ups,” explains centre manager Andrea Deverell. “We are creating a community here where members can both gain value and add value. It has to be reciprocal. Start-ups can rent space cheaper off the campus and there has to be a very good reason for them to come here.

“When members come here it is not just for the term of their occupation – they are going to be with us for life and when they leave they will be there to do the hand-holding and provide support to the next generation of companies. We don’t say we are building an innovation ecosystem just for the hell of it – there is no room for back seat passengers here.”

Indeed, membership of the Nexus community involves far more than simply taking up residence in the centre. Creativity is at the heart of the community. “We understand the paradoxical nature of a start-up business: on one-hand they’re exciting, playful and creative fledgling organisations that require leaders with audacity and passion and on the other they’re hard work, process-oriented, organisations that require leaders with perseverance and discipline,” notes Deverell.

The Nexus portfolio of services seeks to strike the balance between this playful audacity and structured hard work. These services include the Up-Start Business Development Course. This start-up business programme consists of a series one day workshops held monthly over an eight month period. The programme is designed to challenge and guide entrepreneurs as they progress through the phases of business formation.

Experienced mentors are made available to entrepreneurs as they progress through the programme. The programme provides entrepreneurs with insights into key business areas such as marketing, customers, branding and selling, route to market, raising finance, intellectual property management to protect their business idea, and investor expectations.

The Bootcamp Series comprises challenging topical group sessions designed to provide fresh thinking and provocative methodologies for start-ups, while the Nexus team also meets individually with members to help develop and polish ideas.

While the centre has only been open since November 2011, 10 businesses have already located there. “We have a real cross-section of businesses here”, says Deverell. “We haven’t tightly defined the type of business we want because we believe that creativity comes from having a diversity of businesses and entrepreneurs. Also, a lot of new businesses are working across the traditional boundaries between sectors. A lot of very exciting start-ups are doing this and it presents quite a challenge for the university to ensure that our member companies connect to the right expertise here.”

Among the companies located in the centre is Digico, a start-up company founded to create software and hardware solutions for the private and public homecare market and for the tracking of individuals with acquired brain illnesses, primarily Alzheimer’s and dementia.

The company currently has two products on the market, Digimed and Digipal. Digimed assists with the organisation of professional carers’ visits to patients’ homes, while Digipal offers a simple means of tracking the movements of patients with acquired brain illnesses who may wander from their homes or local areas.

“We really wanted to get into the Nexus Centre,” says Digico director Mark Manning. “The support they have given us has been great. They introduced us to the faculty at the School of Medicine and this has been very helpful. They also help start-up companies like ours get access to potential investors from the venture capital community.”

Another highly innovative start-up which has chosen to become a member of the community is NANO Textile. It is involved in the development of textiles which kill so-called superbugs such as MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus). The underlying was co-ordinated by the Materials and Surface Science Institute (MSSI) at the University of Limerick through an EU-funded project.

“We were encouraged to get involved in Nexus to prepare our product for the open market,” says Patrick Cronin of NANO Textile.

“The Nexus Centre will help us with the feasibility study and the business plan for the company. I’m an engineer and they’ve been really good helping us with the business side of it. Each month we have a day with great lectures and over a period of eight months this turns the start-up companies into investor-ready businesses. For me personally, the feedback you get from the mentor provide by Nexus has been great. You get really good objective advice on what works and what doesn’t from an entrepreneur who understands business.”

And the Nexus Community is by no means restricted to the Limerick region. “We already have two international start-ups,” Andrea Deverell points out. “iTrac from the US is a global supply chain management and logistics solutions company which has started up here because the founder had started working with some UL graduates in developing the software code for the business. Imosphere is a UK start-up involved in the development of sophisticated data mining software for the healthcare sector and they came to us through the IDA. This gives a global, international feel to the centre which will add a further dimension to it.”

Prof Shire is very pleased with the performance of the centre so far.

“UL started out with a pioneering vision of innovation, excellence and a commitment to building strong industry collaborations,” she says. “We have got off to a very good start,” she says. “We are very happy. We have exceeded projections for the first year already and we haven’t really done any sort of marketing campaign yet.”