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Cardiff leading the way in knowledge exploitation

Last week, I was heartened by an interesting development in the world of knowledge creation and exploitation that will probably be spectacularly successful because our civil servants and politicians have had relatively little to do with it. At the beginning of this month, Cardiff University announced an agreement for the commercialisation of its research-generated intellectual property. Signing a £27 million deal with the specialist company Biofusion, the university has entered into a ten year agreement given this business the exclusive rights to commercialise all intellectual property derived from research at the university.

Of course, the quid pro quo in this instance is that Biofusion has ringfenced around £8 million to support world class research at Cardiff University and funding to protect any intellectual property being developed.

It is an interesting concept that has been long overdue in Wales, although I am surprised that instituons such as Finance Wales have not been more innovative in developing such an approach themselves, although it is worth noting that it has been a welsh-based company, namely financial specialists GAMBIT, which helped to put the deal together for the university.

Perhaps the critical issue here is that instead of trying to develop its own expertise in the area of technology transfer, this ensures that Cardiff can get on with being a world class research institution whilst Biofusion can bring its experience to commercially exploit the technology generated in the forms of licensing agreements and, more importantly, at least five spin out firms per annum.

As Dr David Grant, the Vice Chancellor stated, this is an agreement based on partnership and will enable all parties, and the Welsh economy, to benefit from the successful commercialisation of world-class research.

Given this approach, I am sure that the other universities in Wales will consider how best to make sure that they can also protect and commercialise their intellectual property in the future and begin to ensure that they can create wealth within their economies.

Perhaps the Cardiff approach may not be the best way forward for other smaller institutions and there may be a need for more locally based funds, supported through the new European funding, to ensure that their intellectual property is protected and exploited and that the wealth is kept within the local areas that need it the most.

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