The Centre for Research on Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CREI) is a leading research centre at Bath focused on entrepreneurship and innovation.

We look, primarily, at how enterprising individuals and organisations (in both the private and public sectors) can bring novelty into their markets and create value for businesses and society.

Research themes

Our research covers four main themes:

The entrepreneurial journey

How can we best design, grow and dissolve new business ventures? We consider the implications of different perspectives.

Open innovation

What can university-industry collaboration, networks and business models teach us about creating value from innovation?

Financing and uncertainty

In uncertain times, new funding models for product development, such as crowdfunding and entrepreneurial finance, offer exciting potential.

New frontiers

Different types of businesses, like social enterprises and family ventures, are breeding grounds for new approaches to innovation.

Action research

Action research is pivotal to what we do, and builds on our existing and future work. Our research:

• speaks to policy makers who devise measures to boost economic growth and entrepreneurship
• advises efforts to encourage the commercialisation of university research
• has immediate applications both for founders of entrepreneurial ventures and managers of established innovative corporations

Our members have advised national governments and worked with international organisations including the European Commission, Innovate UK and Cochrane.

We've collaborated with large international companies including Arup, Nestlé and IBM. We've also worked with local start-ups such as the Rocketmakers, Myvoxsongs and Cognisess, and other local ecosystem players such as SETSquared.