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Technology Transfer Office

As a technology transfer office you act as the bridge and gatekeeper between the universities R&D efforts and the realisation of a commercial outcome from those efforts, but its not easy.

You are stretched

We understand from conversations with many TTOs that they recognise the need for a wide range of business, domain, finance, sales and marketing, legal and operations skills to take projects forward.

We hear that it is difficult to justify the funding required to hire them for early-stage projects, and local consultants don't have the breadth of contacts or depth of experience needed.

There are never enough people with the right skills and expertise, who have the time to deal with all of the potential that does come forward let alone all of the potential that could come forward.

We also hear the frustration of endless fund raising at the sacrifice of time spent helping the company to grow, and usually at a high cost to secure.

We recognise that as a challenge and step up to it.

• We have to make any processes as efficient as possible and make you more productive.
• We have to address the skills gap that opens up when dealing with multiple projects, through access to a much wider skills pool.
• We have to enable the processing of much larger numbers of potential projects than are currently handled, smoothly and efficiently.
• We need to remove the need for the constant search for funds and allow everyone to concentrate on making the project a success

You face difficulties selecting who to progress, and how

Some TTOs are generously funded, others less so, all of them would recognise the frustrations of having to choose between 2 excellent projects, which one goes forward. You have justifiable concerns over disclosure procedures because of confidentiality and exposure to competitors.

With stretched resources it is harder to compare projects and pick the winners

Licensing is sometimes seen as the only way out, bringing its own problems of 3rd party management

We recognise that as a challenge and step up to it.

• We have to make all processes as secure and confidential as possible.
• We have to be able to report easily and consistently on the potential of a project so it can be easily compared to another, highlighting any potential problems as early as possible.
• We have to make the decision to spin-out or license one of choice rather than necessity and provide the same levels of management of 3rd party licensing as we would for a start up company.

You sometimes feel exploited

It may be consultancies that just want to keep writing reports at your cost, or projects that leave all of the work to for you to do, or investors who want more than you can give, or the project to be 'proven' for scale-up before they will invest.

We recognise that as a challenge and step up to it.

• We have to make all processes as fair and open book as possible.
• We have to ensure that projects run smoothly and efficiently.
• We have to balance the needs and aspirations of all concerned, realistically.

Fixing the System not just the Symptoms

To see what we are doing about these problems, our solution and its value to you, click here

We take an idea/innovation along the Lab to IPO (or license ... ) pathway

The Idea >>> Validate >>> Evaluate >>> Launch >>> Fund >>> List on Exchange >>> The Future