UK SPINE AIMday
On 25th November, UK SPINE hosted a virtual industry-academia networking day. The event organization was led by the Dundee team in collaboration with colleagues from across the UK SPINE hubs. The event was attended by 10 companies and over 80 academics from a dozen UK universities. The event used the AIMday format and its purpose was to establish initial connections between industrial and academic scientists. Delegates had an opportunity to take part in open, non-confidential discussions to establish areas of shared interest and complimentary capabilities.
What is an AIMday?
AIMday is a format designed by the University of Uppsala, Sweden. It has been used previously by Oxford for both in-person and virtual events.
The format requires industry delegates to submit a topic for discussion. The UK SPINE team then invite a small group of academics and clinicians who have expertise relevant to that topic. On the day, the industry delegate leads a non-confidential roundtable discussion with the invited academics. The key benefit to industry is that they know that the sessions will be on topics that they value, as opposed to a “show-and-tell” format, where an industry delegate has no control over what is presented to them. More information on the AIMday format can be found here.
Who attended?
The event was attended by ten companies (Astex, AstraZeneca, Biogen, Eli Lilly, GSK, Juvenescnece, MSD, Novo Nordisk, Samsara, Shionogi). There were 14 industry-led roundtable discussions in total, with some companies running multiple sessions. The event was attended by over 80 leading academics from a dozen UK universities (Oxford, Birmingham, Dundee, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Kings, UCL, QMUL, Sheffield, Imperial) and by representatives from the Medicines Discovery Catapult.
What was discussed?
The discussions covered a range of topics including structural biology techniques, target identification with AI and machine learning, the use of clinical data, biomarkers for healthy ageing, and heterogeneity in disease aetiology.
What are the next steps?
Follow up emails have been sent to all attendees to encourage the groups to continue discussion. We anticipate that attendees of some sessions will meet up again to further discuss actions laid out in the AIMday. We know that several of the companies who attended are undertaking internal discussions on how best to follow up on the event.
The event organising team will follow up with industry attendees early in the new year in order to drive as many collaborations and continued discussions as possible.
Praise from Industry Attendees
“Thanks a lot for chairing the meeting yesterday. It was very helpful… it was an excellent meeting and we would like to continue taking part in this type of opportunities.”
“I just wanted to add my thanks for a very stimulating discussion yesterday. I appreciate we put a very broad topic to this forum, and it was certainly a learning curve for me as my first engagement with the AIMday format. We are very grateful to all of you for your positivity, joining in with the spirit of the discussion and for putting forward such valuable insights.”
“Thank you very much for hosting an excellent meeting last week. It was very insightful to meet with colleagues from Dundee and Oxford.”
“Thank you for hosting such a great event this week. I thoroughly enjoyed it and took a lot away.”
“Both the sessions we were involved in were excellent and have already sparked scientific discussion. We appreciate all the hard work that went into making yesterday happen, and it was a pleasure to participate.”
Praise from Academic Attendees
“It sounds as though there could be a good opportunity to establish a new collaborative effort to really explore this further and I think we would certainly be in a good position to have a really strong contribution with our resources locally.”
“Really exciting discussion - thank you so much for inviting me. Very keen to explore further”
“I have so enjoyed the session, and appreciate everyone’s participation, contribution and wonderful to learn the companies increased interest in this exciting new area.”
Summary
The UK SPINE AIMday facilitated intelligent and challenging discussions on a wide range of topics. New connections were formed between researchers in industry and academia, and exciting research questions developed. We look forward to seeing these new relationships develop into new research collaborations in the future.
