Hamish McAlpine is Director of Policy & Engagement at innovation consultancy Oxentia. Hamish is working on a report, due out in September 2025, which explores how Scottish universities currently work with external experts to support research commercialisation and what could be done better in the future.

Sarah and Hamish talk about

• The inherit tensions between how entrepreneurs think and how universities operate
• How entrepreneurs in residence are recruited, inducted, supported and deployed across universities
• The myriad reasons why the pool of experts lacks diversity
• Why Scotland is well placed to make system-wide improvements

Connect with Hamish on LinkedIn 

Visit Hamish’s page on the Oxentia website

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn 

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Nanik Ramchandani is an entrepreneur with over twenty-years’ experience in the financial services industry all around the world. Now based in Edinburgh, Nanik has worked with Edinburgh Napier University for many years. He was an Entrepreneur in Residence in 2023/24 and helped establish the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Digital Trust. He is now working alongside academic co-founder Zakwan Jaroucheh to spin out cybersecurity company Lasting Asset. 

Sarah and Nanik talk about

• His entrepreneurial journey and why he got involved in research commercialisation
• The unique challenges of launching a university spin-out compared to a typical start-up
• Why spinouts need support to get beyond proof of concept and land their first customer
• How universities might attract and incentivise more commercial champions

 Connect with Nanik on LinkedIn

Find out about Nanik’s new spinout business Lasting Asset

 Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn 

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Mark Logan is an entrepreneurship advocate and advisor. Formerly Mark was the Chief Operating Officer of Skyscanner and Chief Entrepreneurial Advisor to the Scottish Government. He now supports entrepreneurship education at the University of Glasgow, the University of Strathclyde and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Sarah and Mark talk about

• How a love of building things evolved into a love of building teams  
• Why ‘scale-deep’ businesses need more recognition and support
• Encouraging universities to take economic impact as seriously as teaching and research
• The untapped potential in Scotland's world-class creative arts sector

 Connect with Mark on LinkedIn 

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn 

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Kirsty Thomson is a charity and social enterprise consultant. She has founded several organisations including The Circle and was recently CEO of The Big House. Kirsty is also a Professor of Practice at the University of Dundee and Chair of the university’s Business School advisory committee.

Kirsty and Sarah explore

• Her professional journey from academic to founder and back again
• The support that charity founders need to be financially sustainable
• Why university students rarely learn about third-sector business models
• How professional role models can help bridge the gap between theory and practice

Connect with Kirsty on LinkedIn

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn 

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Polly is Chair of Converge and the Digital Xtra Fund as well as being a board member of Edinburgh Science. This follows a long career in banking, economic development and digital technology. Polly has an honorary doctorate from the University of Abertay and an OBE for services to industry.

Polly and Sarah discuss:

• Why she has always enjoyed working at the leading edge of innovation
• The challenges universities and academics face when commercialising research
• How Converge supports academic entrepreneurs across all of Scotland’s universities
• What Scotland might learn from looking to other countries

 Connect with Polly on LinkedIn or BlueSky

Visit the Converge website 

See the comparison of European universities DeepTech spinout value that Polly mentions.

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Mark Zwinderman is a strategic advisor who specialises in helping high-growth technology companies. He is CEO of SAS Environmental Services (which started as a university spinout), runs the Moonshot Factory programme at the Higgs Centre for Innovation and is a commercial champion at the University of Strathclyde. 

Mark shares his thoughts on:

• Why people and business culture matter more than the technology or product
• Longer-term support and mentoring for founders
• Where Scotland currently excels, but could do even better with bolder and more ambitious strategies 
• How to recruit and better support more commercial champions

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn

Visit the Moonshot Factory website 

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Diana Gormley is the Founder of business consulting firm Danu Solutions Ltd, as well as being an Entrepreneur in Residence at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

Diana explains why she wants to break down barriers and get more people involved in entrepreneurship including:

• The Women in Business course that helped her transition from engineering to running her own company
• Making entrepreneurial concepts and language accessible and relevant 
• How universities can make good use of their Entrepreneurs in Residence
• Why she thinks university staff need more access to support and opportunities

Connect with Diana on LinkedIn or via email

Find out more about Danu Solutions Ltd

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Christopher Leburn is the Technology Exploitation Director for the Photonics & Quantum Accelerator (PQA) programme based at the University of Strathclyde, but working across Scotland’s central belt. He focuses on supporting and mentoring academics to boost research commercialisation.

Christopher shares his vision for filling the spin-out pipeline with exciting opportunities including:

• Why Scotland’s central belt is perfectly placed to translate more photonics research into innovation
• Getting academics to think more like entrepreneurs
• How he champions great ideas and helps to smooth the path to commercialisation
• Joining the dots from research to real jobs through place-based partnerships 

 Connect with Christopher on LinkedIn or X

Visit the Photonics & Quantum Accelerator website and follow the programme on LinkedIn or X @PhotonicsQA

 Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Gillian Fleming is Co-Founder and Managing Director of women-led angel investment network Mint Ventures. She is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Stirling.

Gillian shares the rewards and challenges of being an Entrepreneur in Residence including

• Why supporting women-led businesses is so important to her
• How working in university commercialisation got her interested in investing
• Her personal connection to Stirling which motivates her to give back
• The rewards of being trusted with people’s ideas and aspirations

Connect to Gillian via LinkedIn

Visit the Mint Ventures website

Follow Mint Ventures on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or X (@MintVentures)

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn 

This podcast was a collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland, Converge and Sarah McLusky, working in partnership with Ross Tuffee and The Connect-Ed Network. The podcast team includes Orla Kelly, Adam Kosterka, Jen Black and Sarah McLusky. This season of Academic Adventures is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.

Emily Doolittle is a lecturer and research fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. She is also an independent composer, working on commissions and personal projects alongside her academic work.

Emily shares how she combines these different roles including:

• Why she identifies as stubborn rather than entrepreneurial
• The ways that her academic and freelance work are intertwined
• How coming to the UK has allowed her to have a more varied career
• Her goal of getting 100 rejections a year

Hear some of Emily’s compositions on her website
Connect to Emily via her Royal Conservatoire profile
Find out about Emily’s interdisciplinary collaborations via SHARE

Follow the Academic Adventures podcast on LinkedIn