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Announcing a collaboration to showcase 3Rs technologies


16 June 2020

The NC3Rs has established a new strategic collaboration with konfer to provide small companies and academic researchers with a platform to showcase their 3Rs tools and technologies to a wide audience – enabling access to new partners and funding and maximising the potential of these approaches to deliver their scientific and animal welfare impacts.

konfer is a ‘digital match maker platform’, created by the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to accelerate partnerships between businesses and university researchers. The platform provides ‘innovation brokerage at your fingertips’ to make university research, researchers and services accessible to businesses to help support translation.

The NC3Rs already has a strong track record in supporting public-private partnerships through the CRACK IT open innovation programme. This includes the CRACK IT Solutions technology partnering hub which has been highly successful in connecting research teams in industry and academia and allowing them to secure new investment. However, konfer has functionality that is not available through CRACK IT Solutions, which is why the NC3Rs team has decided to move its technology partnering activities over to this new platform.

Through the NC3Rs organisation page on konfer, we will promote SMEs and academics with 3Rs technologies that have been identified through horizon scanning, as well as the technologies emerging from NC3Rs grants and its CRACK IT Challenges programme.

Dr Anthony Holmes, NC3Rs Director of Science and Technology, said: Our collaboration with konfer provides an exciting opportunity for 3Rs-focused researchers to access the skills, expertise, equipment and funding needed to develop their models further for wider application or to move them towards commercially ready products and services.”

Dr Joe Marshall, NCUB CEO said “We are delighted to welcome NC3Rs onto konfer and to support their work, building on the success of CRACK IT and showcasing their 3Rs tools and technologies to an even wider network within UK universities and innovative businesses.

Anyone wanting to take advantage of this opportunity to share their research models with the konfer community of over 130,000 academics, and 27,000 businesses across the UK can do so through the NC3Rs organisation page or by contacting enquiries@nc3rs.org.uk.

About konfer

konfer is developed, operated and managed by the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and is free to use.

Search and explore konfer for experts, research papers, equipment, funding or business-university collaboration opportunities. konfer provides a unique means to search for, and discover innovation opportunities across the UK.