Profound Impact Presents Research Impact at Collision 2023

This month’s Research Spotlight focuses on Research Impact, Profound Impact’s research matchmaking product. As the company that connects great people to do great things, Profound Impact was proud to present and demonstrate our Research Impact product at Collision in Toronto on June 26 – 29, 2023. The annual Collision conference brings together global technology leaders and companies, high-potential start-ups and top journalists to participate in more than 20 content tracks that cover topics including corporate innovation, health, finance, sustainability, start-ups, venture capital and the future of work.  

Profound Impact had the opportunity to participate in the Alpha Startup Program which connects early-stage companies with outstanding potential to the world’s most influential people and companies. Our CEO, Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, was selected to participate in the PITCH competition and was chosen to advance to the top ten from over 500 startups! Sherry also teamed up with Deloitte partner Jigna Shah on the AWS Collision stage to present the benefits of using Research Impact to meet the challenges of making those connections.

Profound Impact launched as a data and analytics company to work with universities to empower their alumni and students on their career journeys. Research Impact was developed to help those universities connect with industry partners and government granting agencies. Connections between industry and universities are essential as researchers seek industry partners for research programs and industry looks to researchers for insight into long-term research directions to develop strategic development road maps. On average, it takes 17 years for fundamental research to move to commercial practice.  Global issues like climate change, water contamination, public health, energy, food insecurity and cybersecurity can’t wait more than a decade for the application of groundbreaking research results. A different approach, featuring collaboration between researchers and industry, is required to accelerate innovation.

Over $300 billion in global research funding is available annually for 8.8 million researchers and hundreds of thousands of industry partners around the world. But there are challenges in making connections between researchers and industry partners, knowing where to look for the right funding programs and understanding eligibility requirements.

How do companies navigate the challenges of finding academic research partners and applying for grants? How do researchers find all of the funding programs relevant to their areas of expertise? Without effective tools, many hours are spent researching available funding programs, attempting to reach out to funding agencies and submitting applications for grants in programs that are oversubscribed and competitive without necessarily meeting eligibility requirements.

What if there was an automatic way to match academic and industry researchers to each other and to funding programs? Research Impact combines private and public data using Al and data analytic tools to optimize research funding opportunities.

As demonstrated by the Profound Research team at our booth at Collision, Research Impact features an easy-to-use dashboard that manages researcher areas of focus, funding opportunities, grant deadlines, historical funding matches and industry projects. The tool’s automatic loading of grant programs and researcher profiles, streamlined and targeted communication with researchers and the use of AI and machine learning to make appropriate matches greatly simplifies the process for applying for research funding. The increased efficiency and resulting additional access to funding opportunities can save as much as 80% of the time previously spent by academics, university funding offices and industry researchers.

Profound Impact’s presentations of Research Impact’s power to provide research organizations and industry partners with an increased share of grant funding and a resulting boost in institutional rankings were met with great interest and enthusiasm by Collision’s national and international audience.  We look forward to working with universities, research institutions, industry researchers and funding partners to deploy Research Impact in their organizations.