The MedTech Foundation is our engagement initiative for university students, early career researchers and clinicians. This initiative is supported by the Surgical MIC Management Team, but driven by an interdisciplinary group of students and trainees from healthcare, engineering, physics, chemistry, product design and business. Each year, the collaborative delivers an educational Innovation Programme and organises several research and industry internships, giving its members enhanced training and opportunities to engage with real-world medtech innovation.
Established in 2015 as an affiliation of the NIHR Colorectal Therapies Healthcare Technology Cooperative, the MedTech Foundation is now a key part of the Surgical MedTech Co-operative, as part of the support we provide to early career innovators.We believe instilling these skills and interdisciplinary ethos in the next generation of clinicians, scientists, researchers and industry representatives is vital if we are to improve the translation of technologies for patient benefit. We aim to expand the benefits of the MedTech Foundation to other institutes and MICs nationally and already have begun expanding to Cambridge, Birmingham, Warwick and Kings College London. If you want to get involved with this, whether your institute is listed above or not, please do contact us.
Key benefits of joining the MedTech Foundation include:
- Internship opportunities- many are funded, some international.
- Networking and contacts assistance- help identifying industry and supervisor contacts to take YOUR project to the next level.
- Competitions and Awards- unique access to opportunities to present and publish your work: Excellent CV building activities.
- Join a growing national network of students and trainees working on medtech innovation right now.
- Develop new and existing medtech innovation skills and knowledge from leading experts from healthcare, academia and industry.
Our Business Development and Commercialisation work stream will provide expertise in understanding the Intellectual Property (IP) landscape and routes to market. Our MedTech Foundation is linked to the NHS Clinical Entrepreneurs Training Programme, an MSc level module in Surgical Technologies, and the Wellcome Trust N4 PhD programme. Opportunities will also be made available for international exchanges through existing collaborations.
Follow the MedTech Foundation on Facebook and Twitter, become an associated member and join our mailing list to keep up to date with the latest opportunities for students and early career researchers or clinicians from all specialties. Alternatively, any questions regarding the MedTech Foundation, please email us at surgicalmic@leeds.ac.uk and put MedTech Foundation in the subject line.