ARC Launch

Gain key entrepreneurial skills and start testing your ideas with potential customers and stakeholders in five virtual training sessions.

Find out more
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Overview

  • Learning outcomes

    Gain key entrepreneurial skills,
    Test your venture idea with potential customers and stakeholders,
    Explore different business models,
    Prepare for ARC Accelerate

  • Details

    Free workshop series for UK researchers,
    Expert-led interactive training sessions,
    Cohorts run every few months

  • Duration

    4x online workshops (2-2.5 hours each),
    1x presentation with detailed feedback,
    Around 3 hours of self-study

Apply here!

Join our upcoming ARC Launch cohorts to gain key entrepreneurial skills and start to validate your venture idea.

Apply to ARC Launch

Programme details

ARC Launch consists of four virtual workshops and one presentation, which are designed to help you gain key entrepreneurial skills and explore financially sustainable models for generating impact at scale.

You also get the chance to test your idea with potential customers and external stakeholders and receive expert feedback that will help inform the next steps to progress your idea. For example, this could be participation in an accelerator, collaborative research, forming a consultancy, offering licensing, or developing a social enterprise or for-profit venture.

After attending ARC Launch, you will be in an excellent position to apply to ARC Accelerate, our 6-month accelerator programme with time buyout. 

ARC Launch offers a cohort-based learning environment with peer support from like-minded researchers and additional help from industry experts and Technology Transfer Officers (TTOs).

Cohorts run every few months, and a list of upcoming sessions can be found below. The training is led by Dr Dave Jarman and coordinated by Dr James Woodhams. A TTO or equivalent commercialisation representative should attend the training sessions alongside participants for support.

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Upcoming cohorts

  • ARC Launch cohort 9

    Session 1: Monday, 2 September, 1pm-3pm
    Session 2: Monday, 9 September, 10am-12pm
    Session 3: Tuesday, 17 September, 10am-12pm
    Session 4: Monday, 23 September, 10am-12pm
    Session 5: Monday, 21 October, 9.30am-12.30pm

  • ARC Launch cohort 10

    Session 1: Monday, 7 October, 10am-12pm
    Session 2: Monday, 14 October, 10am-12pm
    Session 3: Tuesday, 22 October, 10am-12pm
    Session 4: Monday, 4 November, 10am-12pm
    Session 5: Monday, 2 December, 9.30am-12.30pm

ARC Launch agenda

Session 1: Creating and Articulating Value – From Identifying Audiences to Validating Value
In this practical workshop, we will shape research into impact proposals and identify how to quickly, cheaply and effectively test and iterate them into compelling value propositions.

Session 2: Critical Questions – Evaluating the Impact Potential of Our Ideas
In this session, we will ask the necessary questions to evaluate the desirability, feasibility, viability, adaptability and authenticity of our emerging propositions and build confidence in taking the necessary steps forward.

Session 3: Masterclass – Talking to Prospective Stakeholders and Overcoming Self-Sabotage
This session will help you engage with industry professionals and give you the confidence to approach them. It will also look at how we can stop ourselves from achieving our goals.

Session 4: Creating Sustainable Impact – Building Business Models
We will explore how to sustain our emerging propositions as viable funded activities. We will also consider the formats our research might take and identify the most likely routes to a successful, sustainable legacy. 

Session 5: Presenting Back 
In our final session, participants get the opportunity to share their emerging ideas and gather expert advice and feedback on their progress to-date and the paths ahead.

Apply to ARC Launch

Application process

The application is short and intended to help us understand your idea better. We want to know what stage you are at, who your project’s stakeholders are, how you imagine your project could have further impact at scale and how you think the programme could help you achieve this aim.

We will ask you to answer the following four questions:

  • What is your project/venture proposal?
  • Who are the various stakeholders of your project? Please outline the (potential) beneficiaries, users and customers*
  • What is your idea for increasing the scale or sustainability of your project’s impact?
  • What are you looking to gain from the ARC Launch programme?

We are not looking for specific answers or types of ideas! You also don’t need to know all the details yet as the programme is designed to help you figure those out. In fact, it is likely that your idea and your plan on how to progress the idea to the next stage will change during the programme.

*The application form provides additional guidance on how to answer this question and the topic is also covered in detail during ARC Discover.

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Workshops and Webinars

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