Fund It or Forget It: How CoDiet Brought Research Impact to Life in Stockholm

From 15th to 17th June 2026, the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) Conference: Collaborating for a Better World: From Ideas to Scaled Impact was hosted in Stockholm, Sweden. The 3-day conference brought together innovation leaders, technology transfer professionals, and research managers from across the globe with the intention of exploring how universities can evolve to meet the demands of a fast-changing world.

Among those invited to lead a workshop were two members of the CoDiet team: Ivana Balkan, Exploitation Manager and Ally Rayner, Communications Manager. 

The pair delivered ‘Fund It or Forget It!’,  a team-based game originally developed to engage CoDiet researchers with the importance of exploiting project results and planning for impact. For the UIIN audience, the team collaborated with Foresight Science & Technology, a leading provider of support in commercialisation, technology transfer, and due diligence, to provide an industry perspective.

Rather than teams using a fictional innovation in the game, participants were challenged to develop an impact strategy for CoDiet’s very own wearable dietary camera, a technology developed within the project and currently being deployed in the project’s clinical trial. 

The CoDiet Camera: From Clinical Trial to Impact Game

Developed by the CoDiet team at Imperial College London, the wearable dietary camera enables passive, real-time dietary monitoring. The images captured are encrypted and stored on the cloud, where it undergoes anonymisation, AI-driven food recognition, and portion and nutrition estimations. Participants at the conference were asked to step into the shoes of the research team and answer a deceptively simple question: how do you ensure this technology has real-world impact for several years after the project closes?

How the Game Works

Teams were set and given a budget of €100 to plan their impact strategy. Drawing from a menu of both commercial routes: IP protection, industry collaboration, licensing, spin-out/start-up, and consultancy and non-commercial routes: policy briefs, open access/datasets, training programmes, public engagement, curriculum integration, and standards/guidelines, teams had to make difficult decisions about where to invest, and crucially, what to leave behind. 

The exercise was designed to bring home a core message that sits at the heart of CoDiet’s exploitation strategy: research value is conditional. Untapped research decays. Without active dissemination, stakeholder engagement, and a clear exploitation plan, even the most promising innovations risk becoming unused knowledge. 

Pitching for Impact

Each team then pitched to a panel of judges for a prize.   After three rounds where teams were only given 5 minutes for deliberation, each team’s designated presenter took to the floor for a two-minute pitch, presenting their impact strategy to a panel of judges, who assessed each approach against its potential for real-world uptake, market and long-term societal impact, and long-term sustainability. 

The energy in the room was palpable. Despite a 9am start on the final day of a packed three-day conference, all participants arrived ready to engage, debate, and compete. The diversity of strategies that emerged, some teams prioritising IP protection and licensing, others investing heavily in policy influence and open access, sparked interesting discussion about the different pathways through which research can generate real-world impact, and how there isn’t one right way to exploit results. 

Why This Matters for CoDiet

Presenting at the UIIN Conference within CoDiet’s broader commitment to ensuring that its research lives on post-project end. As the project enters its later stages, with the clinical trial underway and key technologies exploring opportunities for real-world deployment, questions of exploitation, commercialisation, and sustained impact are increasingly central to the consortium’s work. 

By placing the CoDiet camera at the heart of the game, the workshop served a dual purpose: it gave an international audience of innovation professionals a compelling introduction to one of the project’s most tangible outputs, while simultaneously generating a rich set of perspectives on how that technology could be taken forward.  

The workshop also reinforced a principle that underpins all of CoDiet’s impact planning: impact is not something that happens at the end of a project. It is something that must be designed in from the beginning. 

Get Involved

‘Fund It or Forget It!’ is available to be delivered for research consortia, universities, and innovation networks looking to engage their teams with exploitation planning in a creative and memorable way.

To find out more, contact CoDiet’s Exploitation Manager, Ivana Balkan, at i.balkan@imperial.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The activity was a great success, despite a 9 am start on day 3 of a very busy conference; all the teams showed up ready to engage and be creative with their impact strategies.

If you’re interested in learning more about ‘Fund It or Forget It!’, get in touch with CoDiet’s Exploitation Manager, Ivana Balkan at i.balkan@imperial.ac.uk.

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