Funding to expand Intellectual Property
Posted on 09/03/2011
Innovation
King’s College London and the Universities of Glasgow and Bristol have won funding from the Intellectual Property Office to pioneer easy access to their intellectual assets.
Earlier this year, Glasgow became the first UK university to offer Intellectual Property (IP) – including ground-breaking medical and scientific research - to business and entrepreneurs free of charge.
Now the £80,000 award from the Intellectual Property Office will be used to fund a collaborative project led by Glasgow, King’s and Bristol to move the free IP concept on to create a consortium of open-innovation universities.
The project aims to collectively promote free IP opportunities to industry and increase awareness of the vital role universities have in stimulating innovation and economic competitiveness.
Dr Kevin Cullen, Director of Research and Enterprise at the University of Glasgow, who is leading the project, said: ‘We hope to run an open and accessible project which aims to embed and test a new approach to licensing whilst stimulating debate around the issues of university and company collaboration, and the role which universities have in encouraging innovation for the benefit of UK society and the economy.’
Dr Alison Campbell, Managing Director, King’s College London Business, said: ‘This project allows us to capitalise on our ethos of open innovation at King’s. Our ambition is that it enables more effective engagement with industry across the sector.’
Dr Neil Bradshaw, Director of Enterprise at the University of Bristol said: ‘This pioneering project will advance the use of IP created by our three universities by innovative growth companies and offers a new way for universities to contribute to the growth required in the UK economy.’
Glasgow, King’s and Bristol successfully bid for the funding through the Intellectual Property Office’s recent Fast Forward Competition. The bid was one of only 10 projects funded in the highly competitive awards.
For background on the Fast Forward Competition visit:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/whyuse/research/fastforward/fastforward-background.htm
Notes to editors
King's College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (2010 QS international world rankings), The
Sunday Times 'University of the Year 2010/11' and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has nearly 23,000 students (of whom more than 8,600 are graduate students) from nearly 140 countries, and some 5,500 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.
King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.
King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.
King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit:
www.kingshealthpartners.org