TenU to host event on the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems

Drawing on a comparison between New York’s ecosystem development and an emerging project approach in London, a panel of experts will discuss targeted initiatives and policies that can work in ecosystem-building more generally.

Speakers Orin Herskowitz, TenU member and Vice-President of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer at Columbia University, and Euan Robertson, COO of the Simons Foundation (and formerly the COO of the New York City Economic Development Corporation), will reflect on their experiences of contributing to the development of New York’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and of working within it.

Andrew Jones, Professor of Economic Geography and Deputy President of Research & Enterprise at City, University of London, and Alice Hu Wagner, Managing Director of Strategy Economics and Business Development at the British Business Bank, will describe the approach taken in a Research England-funded London ecosystem project they have steered and discuss the potential of drawing UK-US city comparisons.

The discussion will be set within wider ecosystem policy developments at national level through the UK’s R&D Roadmap and US’s regional economic development initiatives.

The US national policy context will be addressed by Walter Copan, US Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), providing insight on US initiatives in regional economic development. Paul Drabwell, Deputy Director, Science Research and Innovation, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), will comment on the UK’s R&D Roadmap.

TenU is a transatlantic collaboration of ten leading technology transfer offices of Cambridge (UK), Columbia (USA), Edinburgh (UK), Imperial College London (UK), Leuven (Belgium), Manchester (UK), MIT (USA), Oxford (UK), Stanford (USA), and UCL (UK). TenU was formed to capture experiences and insights of leading technology transfer offices and share these with UK and US HE communities and governments in order to increase the societal impact of research. The collaboration is funded by Research England.

TenU Hosts is a series of events offering opportunities for US and UK policymakers, thought leaders and leading practitioners in research commercialisation to hold conversations on topical issues.

“Over the past 20 years, NYC has been transformed into a thriving global hub for start-ups and the ‘innovation economy’. Many parties across New York played roles in this growth: the NYC Economic Development Corporation; the NYS Empire State Development Corporation; the Partnership for NYC; and significantly, all of the region’s research and education institutions. By working closely together, our individual contributions were no doubt amplified, to everyone’s benefit.”

Orin Herskowitz, TenU member and Vice-President of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer at Columbia University