Converge helps students, graduates and staff across Scotland’s universities and research institutes turn their creativity, ideas and innovations into commercial reality.
Regardless of your background, location and business readiness, by joining one of our challenges you’ll gain the tools, support and funding opportunities to springboard your business into the world.
And it won’t cost you a penny. Zip, zilch, nada, zero.
Working in collaboration with Scotland’s universities, we uncover emerging spinouts and start-ups, acting as a catalyst to accelerate the creation of innovative products and services that will improve lives and safeguard our planet.
Open to students, graduates and staff across Scotland's universities, our programme springboards new businesses through intensive business training, networking, 1-2-1 support, generous equity-free cash prizes and expert, professional advice from our roster of industry partners.
We run four challenge categories tailored to developing business across all sectors and stages of development.
Converge Challenge is open to high-calibre, innovative projects with serious growth potential. If you have a ground-breaking idea, this is the challenge for you.
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Designed to support Scotland’s efforts in becoming a carbon neutral nation by 2045, we welcome projects that can deliver maximum impact for Scotland’s net zero goal.
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If you're a social shaker or creative thinker looking to change the world for the better, then this challenge is for you.
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KickStart Challenge is a first step towards commercialisation for early-stage business ideas. It’s designed to test the robustness of your idea, equip you for the realities of entrepreneurship and prepare you for our more advanced challenge categories.
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It's the best thing I've done in my career. The PR it created allowed the business to grow very quickly by drawing in significant investment.
Dave HughesHundreds of aspiring academic entrepreneurs have been through the Converge programme. We think of them as family and are behind them every step of the way, supporting their journey and celebrating their success.
We are an experienced, hands-on, approachable team ready to help make your business idea a reality. We work closely with participants from Scotland's university network on their journey from academia to entrepreneurship, supporting them every step of the way.
Meet the team
NEWS Converge has been shining a light on the breakthrough innovations and ideas emerging from Scotland’s universities with a reception in the Scottish Parliament.
Holyrood reception shines light on university innovation
NEWS Converge has today unveiled the 100 start-ups and spinouts that will receive support to turn their ideas for products and services into reality as part of its 2023 programme. This includes people from all 19 Scottish higher education institutions, with a growing number of companies using AI to help tackle challenges including the climate emergency, health conditions, and childhood literacy.
AI ideas to help people and planet as Converge unveils 100-strong cohortInternational Women’s Day always offers a moment to pause on how far we have come but also how far we still have to go to achieve gender balance. For some people, however, the buzz starts and ends there and they simply go back to their normal lives ignoring the magnitude of the problem and the incredible opportunity that a gender balanced society represents. But it doesn't have to be like that.
Let’s live diversity & inclusion every day – not just 8 MarchWORDS can motivate, inspire and explain. Yet words can also build barriers. As we mark International Women’s Day, we need to talk about how we use the words that surround “entrepreneurs” because, at the moment, we're not getting it right.
Let’s talk about the ‘e’ wordNames are sometimes a barrier in Scotland’s innovation ecosystem and one label splits the audience more than any other – “entrepreneur”.
Why you don’t need to call yourself an ‘entrepreneur’ to be a success
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