Dr Ruth Howard and Dr Gary Law, School of Psychology, were recently shortlisted for the final of the Enterprising Birmingham Innovation Competition 2015 award.
The ‘Most Successful Collaboration with Business’ category nomination recognises their exciting partnership with Warburton’s and the development of the second ‘Gut Feelings’ film (‘Parenting Gut Feelings’ available at amazon.co.uk), presented by Professor Alice Roberts, to support parents of children and young people living with coeliac disease.
The business partnership, based on a shared vision, common values, and a committed sense of purpose to help people living with coeliac disease day-to-day, will enable Warburton’s to engage with their customers and to generate advocacy for them, as well as allowing psychologists at the University of Birmingham to promote their research and generate impact. Ongoing consultancy to Warburton’s will strengthen the profile of coeliac psychology research conducted at the University, and make the researchers and their work more visible and accessible.
The Enterprising Birmingham Innovation Competition was established by BizzInn (a business incubator run by the University of Birmingham) to highlight and reward researchers who have identified a commercial opportunity based on their research and have the drive and vision to transform innovation into enterprise.
All monies from sales of the Gut Feelings films go back into a Social Enterprise, administered by Alta Innovations (the University of Birmingham’s research commercialisation company), to support ongoing coeliac research.