Overview
The Royal Academy of Engineering creates and leads a community of outstanding experts and innovators to engineer better lives.
Through its Enterprise Hub, the Academy supports founders, researchers, and spin-out leaders to develop solutions to complex economic, environmental, and societal challenges. Since launch, the Hub has supported more than 600 UK-based entrepreneurs who have collectively raised over £3.8 billion in further investment.
To strengthen visibility and recognition for these achievements, the Enterprise Hub adopted digital credentials powered by Certify, transforming how participants share and communicate their engagement with the Academy.
The Challenge
Ranked 3rd leading startup hub in the UK, and first for networking, the Royal Academy of Engineering is a global convening force in the field of entrepreneurship. With a high volume of entrepreneurs signing up to receive support each year, encouraging awardees to share and frame their relationship in the correct way has become a growing challenge.
The Academy wanted a way to:
- Give awardees a shareable, verifiable way to acknowledge their relationship with the organisation
- Make sharing their acceptance onto an Enterprise Hub programme as seamless as possible
- Guide awardees to accurately describe their relationship with the Academy
- Strengthen the alumni network through shared professional visibility
Programmes Supported
The Enterprise Hub delivers a wide portfolio of support programmes, each tailored to a different stage of the innovation journey. Digital credentials have been introduced across the portfolio to enable participants to showcase their progress and affiliation.
Shott Scale Up Accelerator: Focused on supporting engineering entrepreneurs preparing to scale, offering commercial leadership development, strategic support, and expert mentoring to help teams move from early traction to sustainable growth.
LIF Global: Designed for innovators in emerging and developing economies, supporting researchers and founders to translate breakthrough ideas into market-ready products and services with global impact.
Regional Talent Engines: A programme widening access to entrepreneurship across UK regions, providing early-stage founders with training, community support, funding pathways, and connections beyond established innovation hubs.
The digital credentials framework has been built so that it can expand across the wider Enterprise Hub portfolio as the Academy continues to scale its work with innovators, founders, and research-driven ventures.
The Solution
The Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub partnered with Certify to design and issue a suite of digital badges recognising acceptance onto Enterprise Hub programmes.
Certify's platform enabled the Enterprise Hub to:
- Create branded digital credentials aligned with the Academy's visual identity
- Issue recipients with digital badges which could be added to their LinkedIn, CVs, and websites, increasing their professional visibility through Academy-led activity
- Track real-time analytics: badge views, shares, and referral traffic to the Academy's programmes from the badge page
Results
The Enterprise Hub has begun to generate sustained engagement through issuing of their credentials:
- 65% of those who shared their credential did so via LinkedIn
- 49% added the credential to their LinkedIn profile
- This activity has generated more than 7,500 views of the Academy's badge pages
Certify provides an additional way for us to manage and enhance our brand, protecting how our programme and product names are written externally. It also helps us achieve greater visibility and reach amongst core audiences.
Helen Mincher, Senior Marketing and Communications Manager, Royal Academy of Engineering
Why It Matters
Digital credentials turn participation into verified, shareable, and measurable assets.
For the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub, they now serve as both a tool for recognition and a marketing channel, amplifying the visibility of the UK's most promising innovators, while strengthening the Hub's identity on digital channels.