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  • Thumbnail for Pearse Coyle: Incubators are a distraction, acquire customers early instead

    Pearse Coyle: Incubators are a distraction, acquire customers early instead

    Researchers with promising technology in the UK can apply for public innovation agency Innovate UK’s pre-accelerator programme ICURe, which supports them in reaching out to 100 potential customers to understand the market viability of their idea.

  • Thumbnail for Asia lags behind other regions for university venture funds

    Asia lags behind other regions for university venture funds

    Just over a fifth of academic institutions in Asia have access to a dedicated university venture fund, with a third of all funds found in Japan — that’s the finding of GUV’s latest regional analysis published last week.

  • Thumbnail for Maria Roche: Professor-led spinouts have poorer outcomes

    Maria Roche: Professor-led spinouts have poorer outcomes

    Should professors be spinout founders? An increasing number of universities are pushing their faculty to be more entrepreneurial but data suggests that that’s not always a good thing — for the professor, the spinout or the students.

  • Thumbnail for Why university venture funds are still uncommon in US and Europe

    Why university venture funds are still uncommon in US and Europe

    Despite the benefits of universities having a venture fund they can draw on to invest in companies they help commercialise, they are still a rarity in places with mature venture capital sectors like Europe and the US.

  • Thumbnail for Season 3 Recap: Groundbreaking incubators and ideal startup founders

    Season 3 Recap: Groundbreaking incubators and ideal startup founders

    We look back at some of the highlights of season 3, which featured many a discussion about university incubator and accelerator programmes, including insights from Jim Shaikh (The Greenhouse at Imperial College London), Paul Devlin (Cardiff University), Brandon Paschal (LaunchLab at Stellenbosch University), and Duncan Johnson and Miles Kirby (NG Studios powered by Deeptech Labs).

  • Thumbnail for Andy Shenk: New Zealand’s remoteness makes it ideal for space tech (rebroadcast)

    Andy Shenk: New Zealand’s remoteness makes it ideal for space tech (rebroadcast)

    Andy Shenk, the chief executive of Auckland UniServices, the commercialisation subsidiary of the University of Auckland, knows that collaborating with the Māori people is important. He also knows that big data and AI offer great opportunities, but tells me about some of the challenges too.

  • Thumbnail for Anita Nel, Brandon Paschal: South Africa is building a world-class innovation ecosystem

    Anita Nel, Brandon Paschal: South Africa is building a world-class innovation ecosystem

    Setting up a venture fund in 2020 was a “huge paradigm shift” for Stellenbosch University in South Africa, because, for the first time, the executive leadership at the institution became interested in spinouts, says Anita Nel, the chief director for innovation and business development, because they understood that academic research had commercial value and a way to build, for example, local pharmaceutical expertise (the country had to wait six months longer than the northern hemisphere for a covid-19 vaccine because there were no vaccine developers or drug discovery companies in all of Africa).

  • Thumbnail for Panel discussion: Can we fix “insane” immigration policies to attract entrepreneurs?

    Panel discussion: Can we fix “insane” immigration policies to attract entrepreneurs?

    Immigrants are profoundly entrepreneurial people: they leave behind everything they know for a new country and new opportunities, often at a financial risk. This willingness to embrace change and build a new life from scratch means it should not be a surprise that in the US alone, 43% of Fortune 500 companies have been founded by immigrants.

  • Thumbnail for Paul Devlin: Cardiff is at the forefront of social sciences commercialisation

    Paul Devlin: Cardiff is at the forefront of social sciences commercialisation

    Commercialising social sciences research is such a new area of technology transfer that when you spin out a company “you might be the first to do that type of deal,” says Paul Devlin, the head of research commercialisation and impact at Cardiff University.

  • Thumbnail for Ilian Iliev: Here’s why NetScientific is doubling down on Cambridge

    Ilian Iliev: Here’s why NetScientific is doubling down on Cambridge

    Last month, EMV Capital, a fund management subsidiary of British investment firm NetScientific, took over Martlet Capital, a Cambridge, UK-focused investor that had been the corporate venture arm of aerospace and defence company Marshall Group for nine years until 2021. The decision was the natural conclusion to EMV’s earlier decision to become an investor in Martlet and allows the investor to further tap into the Cambridge cluster, NetScientific CEO Ilian Iliev says.