As a postdoc, you are an innovator in training and you already share behaviours with entrepreneurs.
Developing your entrepreneurial mindset and capabilities enables you to spot opportunities and have the capacity to act on these with confidence.
Whether that’s in relation to gaining independence in an academic career, a commercial opportunity, policy intervention, or other ways your research can have impact.
Find out about the resources available to help you develop your entrepreneurial thinking and build your confidence to explore different avenues of impact:
The Postdoc Academy is a leading partner within Postdocs to Innovators (p2i) - an international partnership between institutes of higher education and global companies.
p2i's aim is to enhance postdocs' entrepreneurial mindset and a key set of skills, which they can use to pursue careers that will be personally and professionally meaningful both within and outside of academia.
The p2i programme enables postdocs to engage in a range of activities, including:
- postdoc societies
- entrepreneurship events
- business plan competitions
- mentoring
- residential training programmes
- online education courses.
Participants are connected with other researchers, industrial contacts, investors, entrepreneurs, and academics with experience in starts-ups.
p2i Online: Empowering Researchers to Innovate
Postdocs to Innovators (p2i) offers this online course which is free to postdocs from the University of Cambridge and partner institutes who want to learn more about how to seize opportunities and see them through.
The course is ideal for postdocs from any discipline who are:
- open to learning to think entrepreneurially
- curious about entrepreneurship
- ready to develop entrepreneurial skills and confidence
- keen to develop their networks.
Find out more about the course and how to apply.
Venture creation events and programmes provide aspiring entrepreneurs with an exciting opportunity to develop, test and pitch business ideas.
They usually involve working in teams across a set time period (anything from an academic term, to an intense few days), and often involve mentoring and advice from experts and investors.
p2i sponsors places for postdocs to attend for free on a number of these, including:
The Postdocs of Cambridge Society have formed an entrepreneurial sub-committee to provide some entrepreneurship focused events and communications to all postdocs in Cambridge.
If you are interested in contributing to the sub-committee, or helping with planning entrepreneurship events for postdocs, please email contact@pdoc.cam.ac.uk.
I/E Cambridge is a web portal into the Cambridge innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. It provides information on training programmes and events and is there to support, inspire and develop entrepreneurial thinking and skills.