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Commercialising scientific innovation requires an international perspective and an awareness of best practice at a global level. Technology transfer professionals within universities and research institutions need to constantly refine and update their skills regardless of the scale of the technology transfer organisation or the extent of the organisation’s history and experience.
Cambridge Enterprise is meeting that need by delivering intensive, short programmes for senior technology transfer professionals from around the world, allowing them to experience the technology transfer context in Cambridge, one of the world’s leading technology clusters.
The intensive nature of the programmes maximises the learning opportunities for delegates, and their short duration (typically between three and 10 days) ensures that senior staff are not absent from post for too long. The content of the programmes is customised to provide a close match with the specific needs of the delegates, and since the facilitators of the programmes have extensive hands-on experience in their field, delegates are able to explore key issues in depth.
Cambridge Enterprise has delivered numerous intensive programmes over the last four years, some of which were for small groups from an individual institution and others for much larger groups of 30 to 50 delegates.
Recently a group of 25 technology transfer professionals from Jiangsu Province in China spent eight days in Cambridge. The group were immersed in the ecosystem and enhancing their understanding of the key elements within the commercialisation process from IP management and protection through to understanding markets and evaluating business model options. Importantly the programme allowed peers from different universities and institutions to network and share ideas and issues in an informal and open environment, away from the day to day pressures of the office.
We had very focused objectives for the training programme with Cambridge Enterprise. CV Rez is a respected research and development organisation in the field of power generation. Our goal is to become economically independent so it is vital that we maximise the opportunities we have to commercialise the outcomes of our work. Supported by expert practitioners from Cambridge Enterprise the CV Rez team was able to benchmark the organisation’s practices against those of a leading technology transfer office, and to learn from professional in one of the most successful technology clusters in the world
Dušan Štric, Head of the Technology Transfer Office at Centrum výzkumu Řež s.r.o.
In contrast Cambridge Enterprise delivered a three day programme to a small team of senior managers from Centrum výzkumu Řež (CV Rez) in Czech Republic. CV Rez is a research organisation working in the field of power generation (especially nuclear power and hydrogen technologies). The objective for CV Rez was very specific – how to maximise the opportunities for successful commercialisation of innovative ideas born out of the institute’s research. The programme focused on filtering and evaluating those innovations to select the most promising ones and then how best to translate those innovations into commercially valuable propositions.
As a further testimonial to the effectiveness of the short programme format Cambridge Enterprise has hosted a number of programmes for groups from Jiangsu Province. The combination of targeted training delivered by expert practitioners is clearly a winning formula.
Image: 罗布泊 / CC-BY-SA-3.0