Global Corporate Venturing’s third annual Symposium was a suitable opportunity to launch the Research to Commercialisation Club (R2C2) to bring together the leading research centres, such as Uni-Hospital in Zurich and Cleveland Clinic and Partners Healthcare in the US, with the entrepreneurs and corporations that offer invest- ment, partnerships and exit routes to academic-inspired start-ups.
Wanting to explore how higher education institutions could collaborate better with venture investors, I joined a roundtable hosted by the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer’s (NCET2) executive director Tony Stanco for a lively debate about university commerciali- sation which spun out many talking points from voices around the sector.
Universities are often the spearhead of innovation in terms of spin-outs and related start-ups. Yet opportuni- ties and data coming from incubators and tech clusters remains insubstantial for corporate and venture inves- tors. Investors can see that universities are filled to the brim with great ideas, but identifying the best and coaxing them out remains a battle for the business world. Also, the transition from a great idea to a complete package that would entice investment often falls short.
An active, supportive tech cluster is often the solution- raising the question of what makes a successful tech cluster, and how aspiring clusters can attract further talent and investment. In the case of the Golden Triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London, a combination of factors lead to their success. The prestigious names attract high- calibre students, but it is also the culture of the area, the research being conducted and the availability of invest- ment that leads to the Golden Triangle’s strong commer- cialisation output.
Aya Seike, founder of Japan-based patent consultancy Seike Consulting and a visiting researcher at Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Waseda University, said there were “lots of particular issues in Japan for pre- venting professors from selling IP [intellectual property]”.
He added: “One is because the bureaucratic system of university [and its technology licensing office] is prevent- ing professors from selling in the market freely and third parties, like me, approaching professors to sell IP.”
Seike warned that by themselves the TLOs had no idea about what commercialisation was so great inventions never have a chance to be used.
It was suggested that universities need to do more to
support development of an entrepreneurial community around campus in order to foster stronger links between research and business. Closer bonds would lead to increased collaboration on spin-outs, providing the whole business package that investors seek.
In many areas, there is arguably already work on this. But with further development and engagement by univer- sities with these tech clusters, it becomes a self-reciprocating sustainable cycle whereby spin-outs that develop further stay in the cluster and go on to attract more talent and fuel growth, repaying the university in terms of both revenues and prestige for larger research contracts.
This led to a discussion about the metrics of success that universities could score their tech transfer efforts by, and generate stronger data in the process.
Spin-out rates was the first suggestion. An obvious indi- cator of the vitality of a university’s drive to commerciali- sation comes from how many new firms it can start with its research. However, spin-out rates alone tell a fraction of the story. It was suggested that spin-out rates needed to be tethered to another metric in order to demonstrate a healthy tech transfer programme, with either a three- year survival rate or the amount of external investment attracted as strong contenders.
The ability to attract venture capitalists was also fielded as a potential stand-alone metric, as were successful alumni and a university’s licensing engagement with its local small and medium-sized enterprise community. Most importantly, though, was what a commercialisation strategy brings back to its parent university in terms of raising the level of research conducted.
Recent developments in the UK and US suggest that collaboration to foster stronger spin-outs is on the right track. But more conversations, such as those that NCET2 is having at the symposium and around the US, need to take place in order to understand how best to develop and support the community, leading to a more sustain- able form of capitalism.