Darwin College is a post-graduate College at the University of Cambridge, home to PhD and MPhil students across the sciences, humanities, and law. It is a microcosm of global collaboration and expertise, with deep interdisciplinary strengths and a diverse international community.
Innovative ideas capable of addressing urgent global challenges often remain trapped in academic settings, discussed in theory but never tested in the real world.
Postgraduate students and academics possess deep research knowledge and expertise. Yet, in many cases, they lack the entrepreneurial skills and collaborative venues needed to translate their insights into truly impactful business ventures.
Without structured opportunities for cross-disciplinary work, innovative thinking can struggle to make the leap from concept, to attaining seed-funding, and then to real-world impact.
In partnership with Darwin College of the University of Cambridge, the Turner Kirk Trust Darwin Business Plan project was established to support new entrepreneurial ideas that pilot collaborative solutions to global challenges.
The Turner Kirk Trust has pledged £75,000 annually to support Darwin College’s Small Grants for Big Ideas competition, which will see up to three winning teams receive seed funding of up to £25,000 to pilot innovative ideas.
Each project team – comprising a College Fellow, a student, and an alumnus – will receive guidance and targeted mentorship at a kick-off meeting before developing and presenting their business plan to compete for prize funding.
By leveraging the College’s diverse, interdisciplinary community, the programme aims to turn bold concepts into practical initiatives for global good.
The project has empowered the Darwin College community to learn entrepreneurial skills and develop workable business ideas by partaking in cross-sector, cross-generational collaboration.
Entrepreneurial academics will be given the tools and funding to translate their bold ideas into tangible outcomes that could move the needle on some of the world’s biggest problems.
So far, the project has mentored and funded entrepreneurial projects, including a tool for streamlining legal admin, a home-testing kit for female fertility, and an app to track individuals’ carbon footprints. Other projects have produced policy papers, prototypes and community interventions.
“Darwin College is a place where academic expertise and diverse perspectives come together. This project is enabling students, fellows, and alumni to test their academic ideas in the real world. It’s about equipping brilliant minds with the entrepreneurial skills they’ll need in their future – and that will help them address pressing global challenges.”
OneZoom is dedicated to advancing public education in evolution, biodiversity, and conservation by creating an interactive, digital “tree of life” that anyone can explore.
In collaboration with Imperial College London, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), and other partners, the research project set out to develop increased understanding of Antarctic krill distribution and its role in the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
In collaboration with The University of Glasgow, the project aims to develop the evidence needed to produce a transformative method for improving children’s ability across STEM subjects, independent of background or birth.
In partnership with Imperial College London, the Turner Kirk Trust Sprint Challenge was established to bring together conservation scientists and mathematicians from Imperial’s Centre for Environmental Policy, Department of Life Sciences, and Department of Mathematics.
A child protection programme that aims to develop a replicable model for preventing harmful institutionalised care, in favour of family-based care.
An innovative pilot project by SolarAid to provide solar lights to every household in an off-grid village in central Malawi, aiding their mission to light up all of rural Africa by 2030.