Zinc R&D Fellowships
Lead Research Organisation:
Zinc Ventures Limited
Department Name: UNLISTED
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Technical Summary
Stephen Hill
Undertaking a venture-builder Fellowship, which allows early career researchers to spend time immersed in early-stage commercial innovation. The programme will address the supply-side, demand-side and connectivity challenges to enhanced research in ventures. It was set up to support the personal and professional development of ECRs by providing space, time and support for them to gain new skills, apply their knowledge, and trial new career paths.
Claire McCallum
Undertaking a project-based Fellowship on digital health evaluation, working across Zinc’s various programmes and ventures to support founders and start-ups developing digital health products. This project-based Fellowship responds to the rapid growth of digital health products and services and to the now widely recognised need for new ways of evaluating the safety and efficacy of those products and services both quickly and robustly. It was set up to support the personal and professional development of ECRs by providing space, time and support for them to gain new skills, apply their knowledge, and trial new career paths.
Undertaking a venture-builder Fellowship, which allows early career researchers to spend time immersed in early-stage commercial innovation. The programme will address the supply-side, demand-side and connectivity challenges to enhanced research in ventures. It was set up to support the personal and professional development of ECRs by providing space, time and support for them to gain new skills, apply their knowledge, and trial new career paths.
Claire McCallum
Undertaking a project-based Fellowship on digital health evaluation, working across Zinc’s various programmes and ventures to support founders and start-ups developing digital health products. This project-based Fellowship responds to the rapid growth of digital health products and services and to the now widely recognised need for new ways of evaluating the safety and efficacy of those products and services both quickly and robustly. It was set up to support the personal and professional development of ECRs by providing space, time and support for them to gain new skills, apply their knowledge, and trial new career paths.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Claire McCallum (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
| Description | Digital Good Network and Zinc |
| Organisation | University of Sheffield |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | (1) Hosting 2 PhD students within our ventures funded by the network, managing placements and reports sent back to DGN. (2) Claire is a member of their Management Board, attending management meetings to support perspectives from industry, helping to shape their funding calls (relating to Digital Evaluation Methods), reviewing applications, and contributing to their Digital Good Index. |
| Collaborator Contribution | DGN funds the PhD students during their placement. These PhD students will conduct research within the ventures that contributes to their product development. |
| Impact | 2 fully funded PhD students with a social science background relating to women's health. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | LEAP (Leadership Engagement Acceleration & Partnership) - an EPSRC Digital Health Hub |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We will be hosting Placements and Fellowships at Zinc and in our early-stage startups, and we will also provide some input into the teaching programme (e.g. on evaluation methodologies for digital health technologies and wider context of R&D in start ups). |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Hub will bring high calibre PhD students and fellows for placement in our ventures, as well as open up further collaboration opportunities with other partners in the hub. |
| Impact | There are no formal outputs yet beyond some early engagement workshops with all partners. This is a multidisciplinary collaboration, including Engineering and Health Sciences. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Chair and short presentation at Digital Good Network Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Very short presentation introducing Zinc VC to workshop attendees, to open the session "Everyday Digital Good". Attendance at this workshop and broader conference opened up collaboration opportunities for digital health reserach within our ventures, via PhD studentships. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Impact evaluation and experimental optimisation in early stage behaviour change startups: CBC conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation given at International conference (abstract not published): Centre for Behaviour Change, UCL. Presented by Dr Rosie Webster as Claire was on maternity leave. ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Iteratively evaluating the impact of early-stage 'minimum viable' digital health products enables them to be optimised before a summative evaluation (e.g. randomised control trial, RCT). Rapid research designs such as Multiphase optimisation strategy (MOST) and N-of-1 trials may support evidence-based product optimisation. Given the importance of considering evaluation from the outset of product development, we set out to explore how evaluation plans can be meaningfully built into product roadmaps in the context of early-stage commercial digital health startups. AIM: To identify approaches to evaluation that are feasible and valuable for early-stage digital health ventures. METHODS: Workshops and discussions on evaluation and impact measurement were held with 23 early-stage ventures (established 1 month-3 years) developing digital behaviour change products. FINDINGS: Early stage ventures value the ability to measure and report on the overall effectiveness of a product as it may help to acquire investment, which is a key priority. However, highly powered RCTs can be too costly and time-intensive. While recognising the benefits of optimising products in advance of conducting RCTs, ventures consider designs that assess effectiveness for individual users (N-of-1) or individual product features (MOST) to be similarly resource-intensive. Furthermore, using effectiveness experiments to make product decisions (i.e. removing features based on ineffectiveness) can disregard qualitative research that informs other important priorities for features, such as engagement and usability. To inform evaluations, Theory of Change tools were valued for identifying short-term outcomes, which could be used to get an early indication of effectiveness. Several ventures opted to assess short-term outcomes using uncontrolled tests of one product at a time (pre-post surveys) over experimentally comparing features or implementing control groups. CONCLUSIONS: More work is needed to help ventures to credibly assess early indicators of effectiveness quickly and at low-cost. Evaluations should consider how effectiveness experiments will complement qualitative research and account for engagement and usability. Due to lack of time and resources, ventures may benefit from external dedicated support to conduct experiments and improve internal experimental culture. Theory of change tools can inform evaluations during the earliest stages of product design and development. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/behaviour-change/cbc-conference/cbc-online-conference-2022 |
| Description | Teeside University presentation to Psychology Department |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Online presentation for 1 hour to Psychology ECRs and Mid-career researchers on Zinc VC and the health research we do |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |