Opportunity for Funding to Support Researchers Planning Future Spin-Outs in the area of Healthy Ageing
6 Dec 2019
UK SPINE is a knowledge exchange initiative supported by Research England’s Connecting Capabilities Fund seeking to improve health in old age.
There is a fund to support translational proof of concept activities for which all English HEIs are able to apply.
The University of Oxford has been challenged by its steering board to use these funds to help accelerate the formation of spin-out companies. They are therefore seeking to identify researchers who are considering spinning-out their research, but who could benefit from some additional research funding to accelerate the process. For example, this could be used to gather extra data or provide proof of concept in a laboratory setting.
Turning introductions into successful university-industry partnerships
6 Dec 2019
Around the world, governments and funding bodies are upping the pressure on universities to increase their commercialisation efforts. Whether it’s to generate a return on investment for public funding, or to secure new funding streams for research, universities are expected now more than ever to work with industry to license intellectual property (IP), launch spin-outs, and establish long-term strategic partnerships and knowledge exchange programs. Regardless of what sort of agreement is on the table, the negotiations between academia and industry can be long and complicated, and it often falls to the technology transfer office (TTO) at the university to handle these conversations.
One digital access point to the wealth of knowledge within UK academia
21 Nov 2019
Making connections
PraxisAuril and the National Centre for Universities and Business, (NCUB) have a lot in common in both supporting the UK’s big ambitions for R&D investment and knowing that partnerships between UK universities and business are key to addressing the challenges facing society and industry today.
The UK has many successful academic industrial partnerships to celebrate and PraxisAuril members are clearly leaders in good practice in this. But if we want to raise the UK’s R&D investment to the OECD average then we need to do more. Successes should be celebrated and news of the great work that is happening across the UK should be more widely shared to inspire growth in the relatively small number of companies making up the lion’s share of R&D spend in the UK. Only around 12% of firms that are ‘innovating’ currently cooperate with a university, and we are all working hard to grow this proportion to supercharge innovation throughout the UK.
Technology Transfer marketing – is it a waste of time?
8 Nov 2019
Like many other research-intensive universities, Oxford yields hundreds of new inventions every year. This provides the substrate for one of the key aspects of our activity at OUI – the management and commercialisation of IP arising from research. While we don’t take forward every new idea that crosses our threshold – and there are various reasons why we might decide that a project is not supportable – we proceed each year to file in excess of 100 new patent applications, and support plenty of non-patentable IP such as copyright in software source code and health outcomes questionnaires.
HE-BCI headlines: what does the data tell us?
7 Nov 2019
Earlier this year I reflected on the 2017-18 HE-BCI data published by HESA; mentioning the step forward in terms of its presentation as an Open Data set and the bonus FAQs for the more straightforward queries. But I also pointed out how the data can reveal the unexpected and how it is hard to understand the real dynamics, or stories, behind the data sets. In particular, I noted that although the data provides an important snapshot of university knowledge exchange (KE), it’s increasingly recognised that data for KE needs to be more diverse in order to provide a better understanding of KE dynamics within research organisations and with their collaborators. So, as many of our members consider how to respond to the current HESA consultation on the HEBCI data, we thought we would republish the article (see below). You can find similar thoughts in the SpinoutsUK Quarterly Journal June 2019 by OUI's Adam Stotten, who delves into the 'HEBCI fruit basket'.
The HESA consultation closes on Wednesday 11th December, full details available on the website.
Communicating research to industry: How to write a great project summary
31 Oct 2019
In recent years many companies have expanded their open innovation initiatives, with universities capturing the spotlight as an invaluable source of new technologies and game-changing breakthroughs. However, as part of a global web of science and innovation, it can be difficult for academics to get their research in front of the right people in industry. Attracting interest from relevant research and development (R&D) professionals, who often have limited time to evaluate each academic discovery that lands on their desk, is a challenge. Effectively communicating science to industry is crucial to the successful commercialisation of university research.