Newsletter December 2023
The UiO Growth House – UiO’s innovation unit for life sciences, health, and technology
New innovation programme for students in the Oslo region will provide more start-ups
The Growth House at University of Oslo is managing a new collaborative project which will strengthen the student innovation culture in the Oslo region. The project has been granted support from Innovation Norway. The goal is to establish more start-ups and contribute to value creation. OsloMet, BI, Kristiania University College, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Startuplab are collaborators.
The students will work on their own projects with topics that concern them such as climate, technology, student life, demography and health. In addition, they will gain knowledge about entrepreneurship through lectures and workshops.
Reminders student innovation
- Students can apply for up to NOK 25 000 for their innovation projects from the Students Entrepreneurship Fund in Oslo (SEFiO).
- Companies that want to offer summer jobs through the internship programme run by student innovation associations at UiO can sign up now. The UiO Growth House covers 50 per cent of the salary of 20 students who are offered summer jobs in companies with fewer than 10 employees.
Sign up for Impact Breakfast 25 January on chatbots, VR, social relations and mental health
Time and place: 8–10 AM, Gaustadtoppen, Oslo Science Park, Gaustadalleen 21
How can new technologies help us build social relations and improve mental health? Do young people prefer to talk to chatbots instead of healthcare personnel? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the new technologies? Meet researchers from SINTEF and UiO who are experts in chatbots and language models; and a startup from Oslo Science Park.
A collaboration between the UiO Growth House, SINTEF Digital and Oslo Science Park.
Meet the Growth House at career week
WEEK 2 is a career week for early career researchers at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, the Faculty of Dentistry and the Natural History Museum.
- 10 January 12–12.45: The Growth House gives a presentation on how to put knowledge to use with information about our services and the innovation process.
- 11 January 12–16: Visit our stand to talk to the Growth house innovation and communications advisers about how we can support you if you have an innovative idea. If you want a 1:1 meeting, please send us an e-mail on info@growthhouse.uio.no in advance.
- See the whole WEEK 2 programme.
Health innovation and entrepreneurship: Apply for admission to the School of Health Innovation course 1 spring 2024
Learn how to commercialize research or ideas into business ventures and how to innovate services in a clinical setting. Apply for admission to the spring course in health innovation and entrepreneurship. The course is free of cost. Course for PhD students and post-docs as well as young assistant professors, clinicians and researchers. Two modules with four days per module spring 2024 – one module in Oslo and on in Holte, Denmark.
Application deadline: 1 February 2024.
Growth House projects graduated from Aleap bootcamp
The UiO Growth House has, together with the technology transfer office of the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Inven2, been partners at the health incubator Aleap's bootcamp for innovation projects and start-up companies this autumn. Several of the projects in Growth House portfolio have participated in the bootcamp where they have learned more about the path from idea to market with topics within value proposition development, regulatory process and intellectual property strategy, fundraising, organizational governance and pitching.
Read more
– We selected projects from our portfolio that we thought would benefit from the bootcamp and the topics covered there. The Growth House innovation advisers have guided the projects through the process, says senior innovation adviser in the Growth House Beate Rygg Johnsen. Johnsen has also been responsible for teaching Design Thinking at the bootcamp. This is a method for developing products based on users' needs.
In the picture, we see the Growth House advisers together with the projects preparing for the final pitch competition. One of the five Growth House projects, with Steven Ray Wilson from the Department of Chemistry at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at UiO and Fr?ydis Sved Skottvoll from SINTEF Digital, were awarded the Inven2 prize of NOK 25,000. They develop new methods and technology that can be used by researchers and others working with organ-on-a-chip technology. Wilson has also received seed funding from the Growth House. We congratulate the winners!
The School of Health Innovation course 2 completed with pitching competition
The School of Health Innovation course 2 Entrepreneurship in healthcare had its last gathering in Oslo Science Park at the end of November. UiO had participants on all the teams who received awards in the final pitch competition. On the left, ?ystein ?vreb? who got second place with a prize of DKK 20,000, on the right Carmen Herrera who got third place of DKK 20,000, and number three from the right Vandana Ravindran with teammates from Karolinska Institutet as well as Sebastian Meltzer from Ahus/OUS number two on the right who received DKK 50,000 for their project. We congratulate all!
EATRIS – sharing research resources and competence across Europe
If you are working on a drug, diagnostic tool or medical device you should check out the resources from EATRIS – European Infrastructure for Translational Medicine. EATRIS offers both academia and industry access to academic expertise and high-end technologies for preclinical and early clinical development of medicinal products and diagnostics.
Read more
- EATRIS has five platforms: Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs), Biomarkers, Imaging and Tracing, Small Molecules and Vaccines.
- Every year EATRIS identifies relevant EU calls within these topics and builds large EU consortia. They can also be partners in your EU application, or help you find partners.
- Furthermore, they offer courses in the five areas around Europe and free teaching material online.
- They also provide guidance for those who work on repurposing of drugs.
- Another useful tool is the target product profile template that has key questions about your final product and target that you should answer if you have ambitions on putting your research to use, attracting collaborators from industry or investors.
UiO is managing the Norwegian EATRIS membership. Check out the webpage on uio.no for further information and support.
Oslo Science City Arena: Large UiO conferences on energy and life sciences
UiO:Energy and environment organises The Future of Energy is Green and Digital 10–11 January together with Oslo Science City and several others.
UiO:Life Science organises Norway Life Science 2024: Unlocking the Potential of Health Data 13–14 February in collaboration with Oslo Science City and several other partners. The UiO Growth House is member of the programme committee and is co-hosting a session on host attractiveness, talents and competence.
New intern in the Growth House
Khalisah Zulkefli has been employed as an intern at the UiO Growth House for four months. She will work with communications and analysis in connection with the Growth House report for 2023.
Happy holidays – we look forward to collaborating in 2024!
Contact us if you have an early-phase innovation idea!
We offer tailored guidance and support, including seed funding up to NOK 200,000. Contact us if you want to discuss how to proceed with your early-phase innovation idea.