Imperial ChemEng Enterprise Day 2026
Science & Engineering South (SES) partner Imperial College London has brought together founders, investors and researchers for ChemEng Enterprise Day 2026, highlighting a growing pipeline of deep-tech ventures emerging from its Department of Chemical Engineering.
Bringing together innovation and enterprise
Held at Imperial’s South Kensington Campus, the annual event demonstrated how chemical engineering research is being translated into commercial technologies that address global challenges in climate, healthcare, advanced materials, and sustainable manufacturing.
Opening the event, Imperial President Professor Hugh Brady emphasised the importance of enterprise in delivering impact from research, and the university’s ambition to scale its innovation ecosystem to support the development of high-growth ventures.
ChemEng Enterprise, led by Professor Sandro Macchietto, was highlighted as a successful departmental approach to spinout creation, building on a longstanding culture of entrepreneurship within Imperial’s Chemical Engineering community.
Showcasing spinout success
A key focus of the day was the Department’s spinout portfolio, with recent ventures sharing progress on technology development, securing investment and building partnerships. The updates reflected the breadth of innovation emerging from Imperial, spanning decarbonisation technologies, biotechnology and advanced materials.
An interactive “reverse pitches” session provided valuable perspectives from investors and venture partners, who outlined what they look for in early-stage deep-tech ventures and how they support companies to scale.
Global perspectives on climate innovation
Researchers carried out two studies: the first, a human study assessing fingertip sensitivity to tactile cues from buried objects; the second, a robotic experiment using a tactile-equipped robotic arm and a Long Short-Term Memory model to detect object presence.
The authors are Zhengqi Chen
Shared with permission and lightly adapted for brevity by Jessica Livermore.
Photo and original story by QMUL press office.
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