It is nearly a year since the independent review of university spin-out companies was published on 21 November 2023.
The two reviewers, Professor Irene Tracey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Dr Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner of Cambridge Innovation Capital, were ideal candidates to take an expert view on this complex topic, balancing the different university, founder and investor perspectives.
Their review report summarises all available evidence and data. It also analyses strengths and weaknesses of policy solutions proposed by many, and over many years, concluding on sound ways forward for the future.
I believe that this is an important review that will last.
It will help us solve current economic growth challenges, including helping us to develop next generation entrepreneurs, unlocking private sector value from the research base, raising investment for the UK and delivering for societal good.
Research England implementation
Research England has been busy since the review was published, taking the lead role in its implementation.
We have reached a number of important milestones and I wanted to update on our progress.
Sharing best practice
The review recommended that universities come together to adopt the best practices identified in the review, which have been developed further in TenU’s USIT Guide and USIT for Software Guide.
Research England had a monitoring job to do, to provide a list and publish information on those adopting the practices, which was voluntary. I can announce today that 39 universities have already adopted.
The list of higher education providers, published in the annex of our circular letter provides web links to where the institutions have published their changes in policies for their stakeholders. These links may be of interest more widely to understand the important challenges and issues addressed by universities.
We have heard from many more universities that policy changes are underway in their institutions. We therefore plan to publish an updated list on 21 November 2024 as part of a spin-out review one year on stock take.
We have also confirmed today in the same circular letter how we embed this best practice work in our Higher Education Innovation Fund programme.
Sharing tech transfer capability
The review also recommended that we explore whether sharing of tech transfer functions could help make these more effective, particularly for universities that only spin-out companies infrequently.
We received an exciting range of proposals to our Connecting Capability Fund (CCF) programme call for pilots of diverse, innovative models of sharing.
I can announce today that we are allocating over £4,700,000 among 13 successful collaborations.
These 13 collaborations:
- involve 49 different higher education providers
- involve a wide variety of partners not from the higher education sector, including:
- local or combined authorities
- hospitals
- consultancies
- law firms
- angel investors
- research council institutes or public sector research establishments
- are located across all regions of England
- will explore both regional and sector-specific approaches – including in digital, artificial intelligence, and health
These pilots will provide value-for-money insights, helping us deliver on the economic growth agenda and address financial sustainability pressures on higher education.
We will draw together findings from pilots in spring 2025 to identify a way forward for embedding sustainably across the sector.
Better data
Our work to implement the review’s recommendation on improving data on spin-outs is long term and part of our national knowledge exchange metrics programme.
To deliver, we have strengthened our partnership with Jisc-Higher Education Statistics Agency. Research England has taken over leadership of higher education knowledge exchange data requirements from the Office for Students from July 2024 (see our circular letter), recognising that we are a world expert in university knowledge exchange data and hence best placed to take forward new developments.
This forms part of Research England’s critical systems intelligence role, described in our strategic delivery plan.
We are advised in our knowledge exchange data work by our national adviser, Tomas Ulrichsen and his team at the University Commercialisation and Innovation (UCI) Policy Evidence Unit, University of Cambridge.
We also publish today a Research England-UCI expert report on delivering better spin-outs data. The report describes how the register that forms the backbone to better data is being compiled, and how the register and linked data work can contribute to future policy and practice.
The data available from the best practice adoption, together with the policy data we will produce from the register, will provide a good basis for a spin-out dashboard.
A strategic level dashboard can help us understand progress of policy change and performance improvement across the higher education sector, keeping us on track to deliver the review and further the growth agenda.
There are also significant opportunities to achieve better data while reducing burden on higher education providers through use of novel methods such as data linking.
Ellen Bamford, Associate Director, Knowledge Exchange Data and Evidence, discusses our progress so far to deliver better spin-out data.
Next steps
We will review our progress again, including with government, at the end of 2024. I hope to provide a further update to you all at our November stock take.
Top image: Credit: DKosig, iStock, Getty Images Plus via Getty Images
Professor Dame Jessica Corner is Executive Chair of Research England. She heads the organisation responsible for university block grants that fund excellent research and knowledge exchange and deliver impact across the country.
Read more about Professor Dame Jessica Corner.