UoMIF has met or exceeded several key performance targets, reinforcing its commitment to fostering innovation in 91ֱ�� and supporting the commercialisation of cutting-edge research to benefit society.

Innovation Factory is The University of Manchester’s commercialisation arm, dedicated to translating research into commercial opportunities while working closely with academics, industry partners and investors to create and support spinout companies and license cutting-edge technologies.

Over the past year, UoMIF successfully launched seven new spinout companies which span a diverse range of sectors, showcasing the breadth of innovative research emerging from The University of Manchester. These include: Haliogen Power Limited, Plant Organelle Technologies Limited, Oncodrug Limited, VariantValidator Limited, CASA Space Technologies Limited, Kavarney Limited – with CGSkin recently acquired by Skin Diary Limited as well.

In addition to success in setting up spinouts, UoMIF secured £2.3million in licensing income. Future growth in this space looks positive too, with ongoing negotiations and potential deals progressing.

UoMIF has also secured £9.2million in first investments for new University spinouts, significantly exceeding its target of £5million. This success reflects the growth of investor confidence in high-potential technologies developed within the University.

Commenting on the year-end results, Catherine Headley, CEO of the University of Manchester Innovation Factory, said: "This year’s performance is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our team and the remarkable talent within The University of Manchester.

“The successful launch of seven new spinouts and the exceptional level of investment secured are clear indicators that our innovation ecosystem is thriving. While there is room for growth in our licensing income, we are confident that the foundations laid this year will lead to significant future opportunities. We remain committed to supporting our researchers in transforming their groundbreaking ideas into impactful, real-world solutions."

Luke Georghiou, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of The University of Manchester, said: “The Innovation Factory plays a crucial role in transforming our academic breakthroughs into tangible societal benefits. The success of this year’s spinouts and the remarkable level of investment secured are clear evidence of the impact the Innovation Factory is having.

“These results demonstrate the University’s continued commitment to driving technology and entrepreneurship and it highlights the vital place that 91ֱ�� has in leading the world’s innovations. I commend the entire team at UoMIF for their outstanding achievements this year ensuring that The University of Manchester remains at the forefront of research commercialisation.”

The new research by Josh Freeman, Policy Manager at HEPI, (HEPI Report 163), is based on a statistical analysis of 140 university responses and interviews with nearly 60 university professionals.

It finds that higher education institutions have adopted a range of strategies to support students, through hardship funds, food and drink discounts and support with health such as sanitary products, coordinated by cost-of-living ‘working groups’, new committees not bound by the usual university processes.

The report probes the rapid responses of two universities with case studies. The University of Manchester sent £170 cost-of-living payments to more than 90% of students, setting up enquiry forms which handled more than 16,000 queries. At Buckinghamshire New University, a programme to provide free activities saves students up to £200 a month, and those which received its hardship fund had a 7% higher progression rate than those that did not.

Yet the report also finds that universities are being forced to take steps which would have been unthinkable just years ago. More than a quarter of universities (27%) have a food bank, including one third (33%) of Russell Group universities and nearly two-thirds (63%) of universities in Wales. One-in-ten (11%) also distributes food vouchers.

Josh Freeman, author of the report, said: "This report shows that universities are stepping up as students experience their second major crisis in four years. Rather than leaving innovation to the laboratory, student advisors, university leaders and students’ union officers have pushed boundaries to get students more help. But there is more to be done. 

“Universities should streamline bureaucratic hardship funds and set up processes to move more quickly. And it is past time for the Westminster Government to address the real-terms decline in maintenance support, which leaves too many students at risk of deprivation – in what are supposed to be the best years of their lives.”

Dr Simon Merrywest, Director for the Student Experience at the University of Manchester and author of the Foreword to the report, said: "This report clearly highlights the strength and breadth of the response to the sector to the recent cost-of-living crisis, with co-created solutions between students and university leaders at its heart. The financial squeeze of the last two years has though brought into even sharper relief pressures on students that have been growing for many years. This report raises important questions about whether universities should themselves be the ones to plug the growing gaps in student finance.

Professor Nick Braisby, Vice-Chancellor at Buckinghamshire New University and author of the Afterword to the report, said: "This timely report highlights one of higher education’s greatest modern-day challenges – inequality of access, participation and achievement. This challenge is exacerbated by a combination of the cost-of-living crisis and government policy (or lack of policy intervention). Higher education providers are doing what they can to support their students, and this report contains much insight as to how they could provide more and more effective support. BNU is proud to be recognised in the report for our comprehensive award-winning support package, enabled by agile leadership, flexible processes and committed staff. 

"But Universities should not and cannot bear responsibility alone for addressing the cost-of-living crisis facing our students. We concur with the report’s call for government to do much more – if they do not, higher education study will simply become unaffordable for many of our students. Ignoring their needs will cause immense damage to our higher education sector, to our society and to our students’ life chances. We urge the government to heed this call for action."

The longitudinal study of 147 English local authorities revealed that a 1% cut in per capita total service expenditure was associated with a 0.1% increase in multimorbidity - the prevalence of people with two or more chronic conditions.

After controlling for other spending, a 1% cut in public health expenditure was associated with a 0.15% increase in prevalence of multimorbidity.

Though they found no association between public health expenditure and health related quality of life, a 1% cut in adult social care expenditure was associated with a 0.01% decrease in average health-related quality of life.

The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe was funded by the Medical Research Council.

All the local authorities in the study experienced real spending cuts between 2009 and 2018, varying from 42% in Barking and Dagenham to 0·3% in Sefton.

The average total spending cut was 22%, which would suggest an average 2.2 percentage point increase in multimorbidity in England over the period.

Social care expenditure, they found, stagnated: in equivalent terms it was  £416 per person in 2011/12, and £398 in 2017/18.

The researchers measured the prevalence of multimorbidity from 2011 to 18, and health-related quality of life from 2012 to 17 using data from the annual GP Patient Survey of over 400,000 people.

Although they showed that total public health expenditure increased slightly over the period of analysis, like-for-like public health expenditure actually fell in real-terms from 2014/15.

In particular, funding for health at work programmes fell by 47%, the NHS health check programme by 24%, and smoking and tobacco cessation programmes by 24%.

 91ֱ�� author Dr Jonathan Stokes, a Research Fellow from The University of Manchester said: “Recent analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that spending will still be substantially less for local government in 2024/25 than in 2010.

“So some local authorities might still have to cut services over the next few years. We show that can have worrying implications on health and related quality of life, particularly for the poorest areas and people who have more reliance on publicly funded services.

“Not only does austerity have implications on current health, it could very well decrease population resilience for future pandemics or other shocks.

“For example, other studies have shown mortality was higher for Covid-19 for those with co-morbidities. The decade of austerity prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and associated multimorbidity increases, therefore, might have worsened the population effects.”

91ֱ�� author Professor Peter Bower from The University of Manchester said: “These cuts, enacted following the 2008 global financial crisis, were largely imposed by national government, and not primarily influenced by levels of local service needs.

“National policymakers involved in determining grant formulas should aim to better reflect the additional reliance of some communities on this public investment.

“And they should consider that any suppression of funding for wider local government services might have implications for increasing future healthcare service costs.”

The paper ‘The paper Cuts to local government spending, multimorbidity and health-related quality of life: a longitudinal ecological study in England’ is available here