The programme provides up to £35,000 in funding for customer discovery, market validation and exploration of routes to commercialisation, including potential; spin-out or licensing opportunities. The programme is delivered by SETsquared, a university business incubation partnership led by the University of Southampton and including Cardiff University.

The Bangor team comprises Professor Michael Butler as Entrepreneurial Lead, Dr Gabriela Butler as Senior Researcher, and Dona Padan, the University’s Commercialisation Officer, supporting the project as Technology Transfer Officer and Business Adviser.

The team has developed the Receptivity for Change (RfC) Toolset and Digital Diagnostic Platform, designed to help organisations understand their readiness for change before significant resources are committed.

Organisations invest billions in organisational change programmes, yet research suggests that between 60 and 70 per cent of change initiatives fail to achieve their intended outcomes. Failure can result in lost productivity, delayed implementation, staff turnover and significant wasted investment.

The RfC Toolset aims to address this challenge by providing an affordable and scalable digital diagnostic that identifies potential barriers to change before implementation, including AI adoption, organisational growth, hybrid working, major infrastructure investment, net zero and ESG initiatives, and wider digital or organisational transformation.

The methodology has been developed by Professor Michael Butler over more than 20 years and has been validated across more than 50 organisations.

Professor Michael Butler said: “We are delighted to have been selected for the ICURe Explore Programme. It provides us with an exciting opportunity to take the Receptivity for Change methodology beyond the research environment and test its potential in the marketplace.

“The Toolset and platform are currently being finalised, and we are keen to work with organisations that are willing to use them and provide feedback. This will be an important part of our ICURe Explore journey and will help us further develop the Toolset around the needs of organisations.”

Through the programme, the team will undertake customer discovery and market validation, engaging with organisations to better understand their challenges, test the Toolset and explore potential commercial applications.