Business & IP information clinics

Business & IP information clinics

Information is essential for any business.

Our staff provide hour-long advice sessions at the British Library, to talk through your ideas in confidence and help you to identify the information and organisations which will help you develop your business ideas and business plan.

The demand for clinics is currently running significantly higher than the number of places we have available. We recommend you consider attending one of our workshops as an alternative.

Who is it for?

You, if you have a definite idea of what your business or product will be, and wish to find information and advisory services that will enable you to progress your idea and take it to market. This is a service for early-stage businesses only.

If you are an established business looking to grow, our Innovating for Growth programme may be more appropriate. Find out more and apply.

How can I book?

This is an extremely popular service and places are limited; we will offer them to people who we feel would benefit the most.

There are four stages to the application:

1. Fill in the online form requesting a session.

2. We will send you an email with some more questions to find out why you would like a session. The more specific information you give us, the easier it is to see if this service would be right for you.

3. We will read your application and decide whether a clinic would be appropriate.

4. We will either arrange an appointment, or suggest other services for you to use instead. As we have many applications, you may need to wait a few weeks for an appointment.

Apply for a session now

What other options are there?

There may be alternative services which would be a better use of your time. If you wish to focus on the viability of your business plans with an experienced entrepreneur, we suggest you apply for a session with our business planning partners. See our Advice from our partners section for more information.

For specific questions about research and information

If we are not able to offer you a clinic you can still get help from our business and IP experts at our enquiry desk in the Centre. They can help you to find the information you need for your business idea. To use this service you just need to get a free Reader Pass

For help with particular areas of business: finance, legal, business planning etc

We also work with a huge number of partner organisations that can give expert advice on specific topics related to starting a business. See our Advice from our partners section for more information on this.