This year’s 4th Global Innovation Forum Leaders Conference will bring together innovators, investors and policymakers and industry leaders from across the world to the Saïd Business School, Oxford. The conference will be held on the 4th-5th of December 2017 and will feature renowned speakers from academia and entrepreneurship as well as celebrating the biotech industry in Oxford.

The UK is already considered the third largest global life-sciences cluster, supporting over 482,000 jobs, although there are valid concerns from UK scientists and small businesses being shut-out of EU wide Horizon 2020 funding which could also discourage attracting global talent to Britain.

Dr Maxine Allen, Head of Business Development and Partnering for the Medical Sciences Division at Oxford University, supports the Innovation Forum’s flagship event and highlights its importance in encouraging entrepreneurship and collaborations between academia and industry. She commented:

“Oxford University values the power of external partnerships to advance our research goals.  We work closely with companies, the NHS and investors to support the translation of our innovations into new medicines, products and services to drive wealth creation and economic growth.  I am happy to support the Innovation Forum, as I believe they encourage conversations between like-minded people in this exciting field and help to nurture the next generation of entrepreneurially inclined scientists.”

Opening the conference, Rt Hon Lord David Willetts, former Minister for Universities and Science, will discuss ‘the global innovation agenda’. Followed by Dr. Yong Jun Liu, Global Head of Research at Sanofi, who looks into the future and examines where bio innovation can take us in 20 years.

On day two of the conference, Dr. Jonathan Milner, Deputy Chairman and co-founder of Abcam plc., serial entrepreneur and philanthropist will deliver a keynote focusing on investing in people and ‘how to build a company culture’.

Executive Chairman of The Innovation Forum, Dr Marek Tyl added:

“The Innovation Forum is a fantastic opportunity for both budding entrepreneurs and established companies to network and build new collaborations. We are very fortunate to have some renowned industry experts and leading academics at this event and we hope the delegates will take full advantage of that, building new partnerships and securing investments for their exciting science ventures”.

In addition, the conference also features a pitch final of the IMAGINE IF! Startup accelerator, with cutting-edge science and technology seed-level enterprises as well as the opportunity for one-to-partnering.

Companies already confirmed to attend the conference include leading pharmaceutical corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Genentech as well as many innovative biotech and life science businesses such as Immunocore and BenevolentAI.

For more information and to register please visit www.inno-forum.org/if2017