Acceleration & Social Impact Work Package for HORIZON-CL2-2026-01-HERITAGE-02

Kindling Ventures is a UK-based SSH/SHAPE research valorisation consultancy. We run the world's largest commercialisation programme dedicated to social sciences, humanities, arts and creative research — and we're looking to bring that delivery capacity into a HERITAGE-02 consortium.

Our proposal for HERITAGE-02

This Innovation Action (€12m) needs partners who can deliver acceleration, ecosystem-building and uptake at scale — not just research the problem. Kindling can lead or co-lead the acceleration, social-innovation and sustainability components, including:

• Designing and running pilot acceleration and scale-up activity for creative startups, drawing on our tested ARC Accelerator methodology — cohort selection, milestone-based progression, investor and funder-readiness preparation, and cross-sector matchmaking with industry, public-sector and third-sector partners

• Building the evidence base on what drives creative startup growth — combining longitudinal data on 200+ SSH/SHAPE ventures with comparative analysis of European acceleration models through the SHAPE Impact Kollektiv

• Connecting consortium activity to live ecosystems of universities, ventures, social enterprises, investors and creative SMEs across the UK and Europe

• Translating findings into actionable recommendations for policymakers, investor networks, KT offices and CCI support bodies — aligned with the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy

We can also contribute to wider valorisation, exploitation, dissemination and impact — areas where SSH-led consortia frequently underperform — and bring our 110+ university and research-organisation network into recruitment, dissemination and uptake.

What we're looking for

We're seeking consortia working on creative startup growth, disruptive innovation in the CCIs, social innovation in creative sectors, or cross-sectorial innovation. We're particularly well-suited to consortia needing:

• An acceleration or scale-up WP lead with delivery track record at scale

• An SSH/SHAPE specialist rather than a generic STEM valorisation lens

• A partner integrating social ventures, sustainability and mission-driven outcomes alongside commercial acceleration

• A valorisation, exploitation, dissemination and impact partner with cross-sector European reach

• A UK partner connecting to associated-country research and venture networks

We're open to coordinator-credible partnership conversations where the topic and consortium fit are right.

About Kindling Ventures

Founded by knowledge transfer professionals from the Universities of Oxford and Bristol to build the dedicated infrastructure SSH/SHAPE research needs to deliver impact at scale. We help research projects of any kind — commercial, social, mission-driven — become sustainable, whether through ventures, services, partnerships, policy uptake or hybrid models.

Our flagship ARC Accelerator is the world's largest commercialisation programme dedicated to SSH/SHAPE research: 1,000+ researchers, 200+ active ventures (including a strong cohort of social ventures and sustainability-focused projects), 70% female founders, across 110+ universities and research organisations in the UK and Europe.

Kindling is a founding partner of the SHAPE Impact Kollektiv (impactkollektiv.com), a European collective spanning the UK, Germany, Estonia and the Netherlands that has supported 500+ SSH/SHAPE projects across 13 countries. We have worked with UKRI (AHRC, ESRC, Research England, Innovate UK), the British Academy and CGIAR.