1. Mike Wright, Imperial College Business School
© Imperial College Business School
Barriers to technology transfer and policies
1
Presentation at Bologna, February 2014

3. • What barriers are there to technology
transfer?
• How can the barriers to technology
transfer be addressed?
• Focus on:
– Universities
– Spin-offs and academic entrepreneurs
• “10” barriers based on 15 year research
programme
Barriers and overcoming them
© Imperial College Business School
Introduction
3

4. • Universities: spin-offs have contextual
issues related to:
• University ownership of IP
• Time from research to market
• Potentially conflicting objectives and
ambidextrous organizations
– Revenue generation to meet budget
constraints
– Lack of commercial orientation
• Differences between universities
regionally
• Links to varying local industry
networks
Need to understand dimensions of university context
© Imperial College Business School
Barrier 1
4

5. • Disconnect between strategy,
science base,
– Quality and scope of research &
faculty base
– Expertise of TTO
– Culture of Departments and
academic tribes
• Supportive of
commercialization?
– Objectives, risks and returns
unclear/unrealistic/conflicting
© Imperial College Business School
Universities strategies for academic
entrepreneurship not aligned
Barrier 2
5

6. Barrier 3
Mismatched Support Models
for University Spin-Offs
RESOURCES
ACTIVITIES
Low selective 23.3%
Supportive 16.3%
Incubator 4.7%
Low High
Low
High

7. • Traditional focus on hard
science with patents by
faculty or high growth ICT
• Alumni increasingly
provide academic
entrepreneurship:
– Students, Drop-outs,
Graduates
• Financial & social
ventures
• Need to adapt TTO and
education approaches
© Imperial College Business School
Narrow focus of technology being transferred
Barrier 4
7

8. • Academic start-up teams often
lack skill & cognition diversity
– Select who they know not what need
– Don’t build links with those they
need to help them
• Academic Entrepreneurs are
doing it for the first time
– But many academics are serial
entrepreneurs
– can mentor colleagues
– Better than support agencies
– Especially for getting beyond start-
up
© Imperial College Business School
Insufficient attention to entrepreneurs & teams
Barrier 5
8

9. • Spin-off directors need skills &
contacts to help firms grow, cross
critical junctures and survive
– Sector experience, successful prior
entrepreneurial experience, ….
• Spin-offs with academics & TTO
boards limited
– Need contacts to identify required
skills
© Imperial College Business School
Insufficient attention to building boards
Barrier 6
9

10. • Academics embedded in networks with other scientists for
grants & publications
– But embeddedness paradoxical
– May not have networks with commercial actors
• Need to access these networks AND to know how to
recruit the people who can give them that access
Insufficient attention to building networks
© Imperial College Business School
Barrier 7
10

11. © Imperial College Business School 11
Need to be able to transform
networks in different ways
Existing weak ties
Developed strong ties
Opportunity refinement
competency
Resourceacquisition
competency
Championing competency
Use Use Use
Time Time Time
Existing strong ties
New weak ties
Existing strong ties
Existing weak ties
(e.g. fromresource acquisition)
Barrier 7
Need ability to transform networks in
different ways for different purposes

12. • Framing opportunities may especially
be problem in university context as:
– distance from market readiness
– Uncertainty of new markets
• Poses challenges in how opportunities
exploited
• Recognise critical junctures and how
they are overcome….
Challenges of moving from opportunity to market
© Imperial College Business School
Barrier 8
12

13. • Market for products vs market for technology
– Formal IP based spin-offs may take many years to
generate product revenue
– During this period value of technology may rise:
• License the technology, sell patents [technology market]
• Sell or IPO the company [financial market]
– Value from expected future returns
– Valuation uncertain and can be volatile
• Especially if regulatory hurdle not overcome
• Economic and social value
Lack of attention to where value lies
© Imperial College Business School
Barrier 9
13

14. • Especially an issue with innovations generated from
universities
– Far from market
– Long timescales: Biotech/health vs ICT
• Much funding focuses on the beginning of start-up
– Grants, accelerator programs
• …..But start-up is a process
• …many funding rounds before viability
• Multiple finance gaps
• Challenge to make investor-ready at a value acceptable
to the university and the VC
Limited filling of finance gap
© Imperial College Business School
Barrier 10
14

15. • Direct academic entrepreneurship
– Novel research to create innovations leading to spin-offs by academic
scientists and students
– Support for heterogeneity of types
– Flexible human, social and financial capital over the evolving spin-off
life-cycle process
• Indirect academic entrepreneurship
– Education & research experience lead indirectly to entrepreneurial
graduate actions via Corporate Spin-offs & alumni start-ups
• Redesign TTO & courses to support student & alumn start-ups
– Start-up “garages” for students and alumns
– Cross-disciplinary student /faculty projects
– Develop different types of industry reach-out/reach-in
© Imperial College Business School
Rethink Academic Entrepreneurship
Implications for Universities
15

16. Thank You!
Questions?