Over the past 18 months, Undaunted’s Climate Solutions Catalyst (CSC) has been testing a hypothesis: the UK university sector has made discoveries and created inventions that have high potential to tackle climate change, but to have impact, they need to be recognised and supported properly. In this blog, Nicole Alhadeff and Chris Waite outline lessons the team has learned so far when it comes to identifying, supporting and helping translate early-stage academic research.
Academic freedom is a critical engine for technological innovation, with over 200,000 publications emerging from UK institutions annually. A new academic paper is published approximately every fifteen seconds, and this incredibly fast pace means that impactful contributions are being overlooked or under-supported, because current translation and commercialisation support cannot keep up.
To address this challenge, the CSC built alma, a novel, data-driven tool designed to unearth untapped academic research with huge potential to tackle climate change that would otherwise remain neglected.
Making the invisible visible
Alma surfaced, weighted and shortlisted academic papers in our pilot challenge space of ‘green catalysis’. The researchers of the highest scoring papers were invited to apply for the CSC’s five-month support programme: domain experts validated the applications, and a final cohort of three teams was selected. Each one was awarded a prize of £35,000 to advance their research and start exploring commercialisation.
In addition to the ‘green catalysis’ pilot, we also tested alma in collaboration with external partners across the wider innovation ecosystem. Its significance as a tool has become clear. Alma is proactive and agnostic, identifying a paper’s commercial potential before researchers or tech transfer teams have noticed it. It has the power, therefore, to uncover academics who do not self-identify as entrepreneurs, and who likely wouldn’t apply to open calls for commercialisation, or seek support to scale their research.
Many researchers remain disconnected from the networks, expertise and support structures necessary to move their work beyond the lab; its potential, therefore, risks remaining confined to academic settings, never entering the innovation pipeline or being leveraged to address climate change. There are many exciting options for academics to explore when it comes to entrepreneurship: creating a spinout, filing a patent, licensing, policy engagement, or further research. But without this initial recognition, these pathways are rarely explored. This is where the CSC can really move the needle.
In making the invisible visible, the CSC gained a set of insights into how and why promising research so often struggles to advance towards real-world application. These insights extend beyond a tool or support programme: they surface systemic challenges and opportunities within the innovation ecosystem.
The lessons outlined below reflect what the CSC learned about identifying, supporting and helping translate early-stage academic research, drawing on its inaugural cohort of three brilliant teams working in the green catalysis field.
Alma proved to be a strong discovery tool. It served as a highly effective filter, reducing hundreds of thousands of academic papers to a tractable subset (approximately 0.25%) highly relevant to the ‘green catalysis’ challenge theme.
While manual due diligence of shortlisted research outputs is essential, the CSC’s data-first, institution-agnostic and anonymised approach identified many promising innovators who had not previously engaged with research translation and commercialisation, and who sit outside geographical hotspots such as the Golden Triangle. In this sense, the CSC validated its core hypothesis, that neglected climate solutions can be successfully identified.
However, the CSC’s experience also made it clear that visibility alone does not translate research into real-world impact. While Alma exceeded expectations in uncovering research potential, human judgment, contextual understanding, and support programmes play a vital part in helping unearth climate innovators and enabling their potential to progress. The CSC journey would not have been possible without the people who supported it. From the assessor panel that evaluated researchers’ proposals, to the mentors and masterclass facilitators who shared their expertise, time and insights with the three teams. It was the combination of data-driven discovery, humans in the loop and bespoke early-stage support that enabled the CSC to truly succeed in moving from identification towards meaningful translation. And that brings us to the next lesson…
The three teams who took part in Cohort 1 were at technology readiness levels 1 to 3, an early stage when research direction and team structure are highly dynamic. At this phase, there is leeway to adapt, pivot and test assumptions without excessive risks. It is precisely in this flexibility that the CSC’s early intervention proved catalytic.
The most significant impact the CSC had on the academic participants was identifying clearer impact pathways and shifting the academic mindset towards more entrepreneurial thinking. All evidence suggests that without this dedicated support programme, the awardees would have:
(a) Lacked clarity on how to deploy the unique grant award of £35,000 strategically
(b) Progressed more narrowly within defined lab parameters
Through early assumption testing, teams strengthened their judgment, deepened confidence in their solutions, and expanded both the type and quality of information, informing their decisions. Our goal was not to prescribe a single pathway, rather, to expose teams to the multiple translation opportunities available (spinning out, licensing, filing a patent or industry collaboration etc) and support them in identifying the pathway that best aligned with their solution and ambitions. This process clarified next steps, reinforced the importance of product-market fit alignment, and enabled the teams to have a clear view of their respective roles and responsibilities.
The CSC goal was to get researchers out of the lab, enabling them to engage with actors beyond their academic environment. Conversations with potential users and industry partners, IP lawyers, technoeconomic analysts, startup founders, and pre-seed investors reshaped how teams framed problems and assessed feasibility.
These interactions broadened their knowledge and ultimately improved the quality of their decisions. Market insights, institutional realities, and deployment constraints introduced new considerations that would not have emerged from their scientific validation alone.
Additionally, in-person events and networking opportunities were catalyzing for the team, allowing them to secure follow-on funding, meet potential new advisors, and expand their networks.
Ultimately, as a result of the five-month bespoke support, all awardees pivoted towards market needs and constraints. This shift underscored a bigger insight: innovation cannot happen in isolation. Academics need cross-disciplinary and cross-sector networks that can introduce complementary expertise, challenge their assumptions, and help them steer their research direction.
Operating on an agnostic basis expands who can be seen, particularly researchers who would not identify as innovators. Additionally, beyond filtering, the shortlisting of several ‘domain-jumping’ ideas – papers originating in non-climate relevant fields such as biomedicine being linked to novel climate applications – suggests that the tool also has predictive and generative functionality, not merely retrospective ones, which can be developed further.
Alma does not replace human judgment. Instead, it complements it. Through the CSC approach, domain experts and alma work as a hive mind of innovation. Unlike human-led discovery processes, alma operates systematically across large volumes of research outputs and does not depend on existing professional networks or prior relationships. By expanding who can be seen and engaged at an early stage, alma enables human expertise to focus where it adds the greatest value: providing contextual grounding, supporting translation, and guiding promising ideas toward real-world application. Therefore, alma strengthens the innovation pipeline by widening participation, adding more horses to the race and improving how early-stage ideas are identified.
Impact sits at the core of Undaunted’s mission of powering early-stage climate innovation across London, the UK and beyond. Tools like Alma make promising climate solutions visible, enabling academics, when adequately supported, to translate their ideas into real-world applications.
Early-stage academic research frequently falls short of existing support structures. The CSC fills this gap by combining discovery with a bespoke impact-first support programme. Our pilot demonstrated that climate solutions are out there.
The challenge lies in designing systems that recognise and support academics early enough to improve decision making, shape research with product market fit in mind, and unlock the value of cross-sector and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Academics who don’t know their true potential are out there, and the CSC, through Alma, can find them.
Contact the CSC team to explore how alma can help you, or to learn more about what we’re up to.
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