July New Report Reveals How Research Centres Can Achieve Economic Sustainability

Report on technology transfer offers 12 business models to help research centres commercialise their discoveries

A new report led by the IESE Business School in Spain in collaboration with NUI Galway and other European Partners, sets out to address a major issue faced by leaders of research centres around the world: how to achieve economic sustainability while preserving academic quality.

The report is based on an in depth analysis of 3,881 research centres in 107 countries, and it offers an informative guide for how research leaders can best commercialise their discoveries. While research centres are crucial for developing new technologies and scientific discoveries, every year many are shutdown. The authors say these closures often stem from a failure to turn research ideas into economic value, rendering the innovation research unsustainable or broken. 

To counteract this, the 40-page report tracks three phases of a research centre’s work: (1) research (discovery), (2) transformation (invention) and (3) commercialisation (innovation). It then presents a quick overview of six gaps to watch out for, 18 mechanisms to address them and 12 business models (with successful examples) that are working at research centres within universities, industry and government.

The report was created in collaboration with the STARTED Project which is coordinated by NUI Galway and aims to reinforce and structure a European network for promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in the Research and Development (R&D) area while improving the flow of knowledge and win-win cooperation between Higher Education Institutions and businesses.

From NUI Galway, Professor John Breslin is the STARTED project coordinator and Mr Gabriel Mullarkey is the project lead with support from Dr Paul Flynn. All three are part of TechInnovate at NUI Galway, a forum which combines resources to catalyse and lead technology innovation.

Professor John Breslin, NUI Galway, said: “Leveraging innovations should be a priority for all HEIs and R&D-active companies, however the lack of entrepreneurial skills within these organisations results in lost commercialisation potential.

“Fundamentally, the STARTED Project, funded by Erasmus+, will empower researchers to transfer innovative research projects through to becoming robust startup opportunities through our new project-based entrepreneurship training approaches.”

Mr Gabriel Mullarkey, NUI Galway, said: “The STARTED Project consortium is made up of a diverse group of experienced partners consisting of HEI institutes, SMEs and a European entrepreneurship network. This diversity ensures we take a real-world approach in building the entrepreneurial supports for researchers; uncovering their unmet needs in the commercialisation of their innovations and providing them with new tools and resources to start up.”

The STARTED Project will ultimately lead to the setting up of a European Research to Startup Centre (ERSC) allowing for a paradigm shift in entrepreneurship teaching and learning approaches.

The report was led by Josemaria Siota and Antonio Dávila of IESE Business School, in collaboration with STARTED Project partners NUI Galway, Roma Tre University, European Young Innovators Forum, VentureHub and Translated with contribution from Opinno’s Xavier Contijoch, the European Commission.

For expressions of interest from researchers and research centres interested in learning entrepreneurial skills from the STARTED Project, please email info@startedproject.eu.

To read the full report ‘Technology Transfer: Commercialising Discoveries at Research Centres Through Linked Innovation’ visit: https://www.ieseinsight.com/doc.aspx?id=2225&idioma=2 or www.iese.edu/

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