Season 4 Recap: Building blocks in place for university venturing to take off in 2025
Is 2025 the year that university technology transfer will see a big boost? It certainly looks promising, particularly in the UK, where a government-led spinout review has encouraged universities to lower equity in spinouts to 25%. Most universities in the UK have adopted the guidelines. The debate over equity stakes is a discussion that Michele Barbour, associate pro vice-chancellor for enterprise and innovation at the University of Bristol, says she actually welcomed because it gave tech transfer a visibility that had so far lacked.
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Create more spinouts, more quickly with standard deal terms and willingness to fail
To date, 49 universities in the UK have adopted a recommendation to take between 10% and 25% equity in their life science spinouts. The recommendation was inspired by the USIT Guide, published last year by tech transfer group TenU, making it the guide’s arguably biggest impact yet.
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More proof of concept funding is needed to create impactful spinouts
The UK government has committed £40m ($50m) to proof of concept funding over the next five years. How should the money available be deployed? One idea — inspired by the Flemish approach — is to set up investment committees of industry, VC and university experts to allocate the money.
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How the UK’s spinout review settled “myopic” equity debate
A year ago, Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Andrew Williamson, chief executive of venture capital firm Cambridge Innovation Capital, published their UK government-sponsored report into the spinout ecosystem with a list of 11 recommendations on how to uplift the sector.
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Landon Borders, Alexa Narel: How the University of Kentucky makes whisky more sustainable
Whisky may not be the first industry to come to mind when you think of university innovation, but for the University of Kentucky — based in a US state known around the world for its bourbon industry — it's an obvious next step in its tech transfer activities.
Beyond the Breakthrough is a weekly interview show with the brightest minds in university innovation tackling the question: how does research get from a lab into the marketplace? It is hosted by Thierry Heles.
Listen to Beyond the Breakthrough with Thierry Heles, Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
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