Dr Lysimachos Zografos

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Lysimachos Zografos is Head of Spinout Studio at Edinburgh Innovations, where he helps researchers turn complex academic ideas into clear, viable ventures that address real-world problems. With a background as a founder in drug discovery and experience across innovation-led businesses, he combines commercial insight, strategic thinking and a strong commitment to responsible innovation.

How would you explain your job to an alien?

There are two sides to my job which I enjoy in equal measure. 

First, I help academics turn their research to solutions for real-world problems. This could look like many things: providing a fresh pair of eyes and a market perspective, acid testing the ideas, structuring the approach, getting into the nitty-gritty of how to prove that their products and services are needed, making clear and attractive new venture propositions and creating new relationships with those who can accelerate these ventures. It’s really about taking a complex idea and trimming it down to a clear and sustainable new venture.  

As Head of Spinout Studio, I work with an incredibly talented team and together we are building the infrastructure that will help us being able to do the above at speed and scale and adapt it for the emerging changes in the technological landscape. 

What did you do before EI?

I founded a drug discovery company specialising in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation. I also played around with developing products based on a couple of other ideas in the digital therapeutics space and had a short run providing specialist advice to other companies.  

What is most important though is that across both organisations there is a strong culture of innovating responsibly and in line with social and civic responsibility.  

What’s the best thing about working at EI/the University of Edinburgh?

At the University we get to work with one of the brightest, motivated and diverse group of researchers, at a prestigious institution that underpins everything with a strong strategic vision. It’s fertile ground with a solid foundation. At EI we get to work with colleagues who have an incredible amount of real-world experience and insight.

What's your favourite project that you’ve worked on? What did the project accomplish?

It’s difficult to choose. Although I have a biomedical background, I tend to be most impressed by lateral thinking approaches that bring together a solution from a “distant” domain to directly solve a persisting problem. Instances of this can be found in many projects the team has supported including: a data-driven defibrillator placement platform, a neurodiversity psychoeducation solution and emerging work transferring traditional community-informed practices to treatment of complex addiction problems.  

What are you most proud of from your time at EI?

Working with an excellent team that draws on so many diverse and complementary skills and delivering what has been recognised a transformational programme when it comes to the engagement of those that are new to translating their research.  

What does innovation mean to you?

Understanding the problem statement and who’s involved. Balancing push (improving the technology) and pull (understanding the problem). Listen, iterate and improve and if you fail, fail early.  

If you had one more hour in the day how would you spend it?

Ensuring more responsibility in innovation. Humanity develops technologies that are practically an ongoing experiment with unpredictable impacts on our lives and the planet. We need to focus more on thinking through consequences and including more perspective from those who may be affected.  

What piece of advice has stuck with you?

There are hardly any new ideas under the sun. Execution makes all the difference. It’s a nicer version of “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration”. 

What’s would you really like to work on at EI/UoE

Is there anything people don't understand about your job that you wish they did?

It really is a bit of everything. From technical deep dives and teasing patterns out of the market intelligence, to working with people (and all the beauty that entails). 

What drew you to this field and how did you get started? 

Getting to work with smart people and learn new things every single day. 

What is your typical approach to problem-solving? 

The right balance of structure and flexibility.