University research

Conference 2015 Report: What can government do to support technology transfer and innovation?

Speakers include Celia Caulcott (Executive Director, Innovation and Skills, BBSRC and RCUK); Debbie Buckley-Golder (Head of Research Engagement, Innovate UK); Deirdre Glenn (Director Manufacturing, Engineering &Energy Commercialisation, Enterprise Ireland) and Yasemin Koc (Innovation Advisor, British Council).

"Knowledge transfer is a people business"

Tamsin was providing context for local activities since the main purpose of KnowledgeLondon is to allow practitioners of technology transfer and knowledge exchange to talk about their day-to-day experiences of working with companies and academics: attracting the former and incentivising the latter to bring about fruitful engagements.

Interestingly, the conversations centred much more around academic engagement with technology transfer than around commercial engagement – perhaps reflecting recent pressures around impact activity created by the REF.

HEFCE analysis of REF 2014

The report The nature, scale and beneficiaries of research impact  launched at a conference hosted by HEFCE at the Royal Society. This report provides an initial assessment of the 6,679 non-redacted impact case studies that were submitted to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF). A novel mix of text-mining techniques and qualitative analysis was used to synthesize the corpus of case studies.

Easy Access IP – burning myths not bridges

Intellectual property are knowledge assets that both universities and business create, but to own and manage these assets they require legal rights.

When most people think of IP they think of the rights that attribute ownership rather than of the knowledge content of the asset. Intellectual property rights typically take the form of a document, such as patents or copyrights, that describes the knowledge content and attributes ownership of the asset.

The secret to strong strategic partnerships

Strategic alliances are high on the government’s and funders’ agendas. Significant industrial engagement is often critical to get investment for strategic university projects. Universities and industry have been collaborating for over a century; indeed many of our universities were originally established to address pre-competitive business and industrial questions. Over the last decade there have been a number of reviews calling for more and better university-industry collaboration. But what makes for a good strategic partnership?

The Life Cycle of a PraxisUnico Consultation Response

At PraxisUnico, we work to advocate the views of our members, to make sure they are represented on issues which affect them. But how do we come up with these responses?

The first point of contact is often our Policy Officer, Tamsin Mann. Tamsin works to keep abreast of the latest developments and ensure we are well-placed and well-informed to respond. Tamsin will often be the first to hear about consultations through her contacts, or either she or another member of PraxisUnico will be contacted directly by e.g. BIS, HEFCE or another review body for our input.

The Future of Technology and Innovation Centres - Event Report

This event shared case studies and best practices from different innovation centres (including Catapults) and their local partners, and it was encouraging to see the wide spread of activity.

The event was delivered in partnership with NCUB and Rosa Fernandez, Director of Research, did the closing keynote on how universities are working with Catapults. A key message from this event was that Catapults are just part of the range of collaborative R&D mechanism, and there are many routes to success.

Book Review - Adam Jolly, "Working with Universities"

Assuming no prior knowledge, the reader is taken through the university landscape, mechanisms for engagement and funding models. This provides a good grounding in the various methods and their respective advantages offered to businesses open to engaging with universities.

The book shares valuable insights and experiences of working with universities that, if taken on board, can potentially smooth the way for businesses to operate with universities based on a greater understanding of the institutional set-ups and stakeholders, avoiding false assumptions before they arise.

SETsquared TTOs design new ‘Team Approach to Tech Transfer’

If you are an academic trying to build a business from your ideas it can be pretty lonely, particularly when you are working with a hard pressed local tech transfer team who don’t have much time available to spend on each disclosure. Moving things forward quickly when no one has enough time or resource to really focus means that projects often have to develop incrementally and can consume a lot of sub-optimal effort with no guarantee of success.