Memorandum submitted by London Technology
Network
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
London Technology Network (LTN) has created
new structures, systems and capabilities all targeted at increasing
the number and quality of interactions between companies and the
technology research-base of London's Higher Education Institutes.
In 2003-04 LTN generated 622 negotiations between
companies and research scientists:
— 421 of which were between partners
who had never worked together before; and
— 236 of which resulted in collaborative
projects being initiated.
There are many other qualitative and quantitative
output measures, all showing a significant and growing propensity
for interaction between businesses and research-based academics
facilitated by the LTN.
LTN has achieved these high levels of output
by delivering on a very focused mission to link companies (from
anywhere in the world) to the technology research base in London:
most of the companies actively engaging have bases in London and
surrounding regions.
The key operating principles LTN applies, which
may be different from other organisations include:
1. Working exclusively with:
(a) a uniquely trained and supported network
of research scientists (100+) each representing their department
which delivers world-class research with the knowledge of, but
not via, their technology transfer offices (20+ institutions);
and
(b) senior executives from technology-using
companies (of any size).
The rationale is that the best advocate technology
is the technologist him/her self, and the best buyer in a company
of external technology-based expertise is the senior executive
responsible. The inappropriate intervention of an by other stakeholders
before these principle partners have a common understanding can
impede, or prevent, an interaction from ever happening.
2. Employing staff who are industry experts
and whose role is to directly support:
(a) industry executives to develop projects
which would benefit from working with academic research scientists
and vice versa; and
(b) research scientists to develop appropriately
targeted responses to project requests from industry and vice
versa.
The rationale is that it is essential to provide
expert assistance to ensure that industrialists and academics
have common expectations of what each will contribute to, and
gain from, any interaction. This assistance must be delivered
rapidly before the parties meet and needs to inform their thinking
before and during any collaboration. Introductions must be filtered
as neither party has sufficient time or energy to waste on inappropriate
meetings or discussions.
3. Above all, LTN is an "honest broker"
in that it:
(a) shows all project briefs to all potential
partners (inc technology transfer offices);
(b) shows all responses to project briefs
to the project owner; and
(c) is absolutely neutral, having no financial
interest in the outcomes of any introductions made.
This last operating principle is absolutely
essential to the role of any "market maker" or intermediary.
Unless an intermediary is seen to be impartial, unbiased and expert
they will not be used: charging on the basis of transaction outcomes
creates a natural bias and significantly reduces their effectiveness.
BACKGROUND OF
LONDON
London is the most productive region in the
UK, consistently adding over 20% more value per filled job and
30% more per head than the UK average.[57]
London accounts for over 30% of the UK's knowledge economy, private
sector-led industries where graduates make up at least 25% of
the workforce.[58]
London's universities employ over 9,500 of the
UK's 48,000 academic researchers, over 5,000 of which publish
in technology related subjects (eg Design, Computing Science,
Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences) at the higher Research
Assessment Exercise ratings of 4, 5 or 5*.[59]While
London's university research may represent 25% of the UK's HEI
research base, it is comparable in size to that of MIT or Stanford
Universities in the USA.
So why do companies need help exploiting the
research expertise and outputs of London's HEIs?
London's ~250,000 businesses, over 16% of the
UK total, actually lag on innovation. Only 18% of London's enterprises
introduced new products between 1998 and 2000.[60]
London's businesses contribute only 7% of the national expenditure
on R&D.[61]
On the innovation supply side, beyond the well-known premier league
of London universities that employ less than half the researchers
in London, the visibility of good research is quite limited.[62]
London is a large component of the UK economy and research base,
so improving the commercial exploitation of its publicly funded
research is important both regionally and nationally.
LONDON TECHNOLOGY
NETWORK GOVERNANCE,
STRUCTURE AND
FOCUS
LTN Governance
London Technology Network was formed:
— in 2002 as a not-for-profit Company
Limited by Guarantee;
— as a partnership between London Business
School and University College London;
— with London Business School as "Accounting
Officer";
— with support from many other universities
in London; and
— to work with the pan-London university
research base on an absolutely open and equal basis.
Since formation, LTN has:
— expanded its Board to include members
from other universities in London;
— raised £4 million from the central
government (HEIF stream from HEFCE);
— raised £2 million from the EU
and LDA to operate an "Innovation Relay Centre"; and
— raised £0.9 million from HEFCE
and the LDA (subject to contract).
LTN Structure
LTN's structure seeks to match business demand
with university supply:
— LTN employs and supports 100+ research-based
academics as "Business Fellows" in targeted departments
rated as 4, 5 or 5* in the latest Research Assessment Exercise
in London's universities ensuring engagement exclusively from
departments deemed to be researching at, or near to, "world-class"
in either the development of new technology-based innovations
or in their implementation into new products, processes or services.
Business Fellows work with their research-active
fellow academics to:
— map all the interactions which
their departments may wish to have with businesses; and
— act as the initial contacts for
relevant business enquiries.
LTN is working with 100+ departments
from 20+ research institutes (and their technology transfer offices)
accessing a research base of significant scale and scope. (see
Appendix A).
— LTN Marketing and Events team organises
invitation-only monthly events on specific technology topics (eg
biomedical imaging, oncology, sustainable transport) that attract
around 100 attendees of whom 50 are senior industry executives
and 50 are senior academics.
— LTN staff visit business executives
to discuss their needs, identify appropriate ways that academics
could help, and pass enquiries to Business Fellows and Technology
Transfer Offices.
LTN Focus
LTN focuses on stimulating an increased number,
variety and quality of interactions between business and London
universities' research base:
— Lack of industry pull/demand was
highlighted by Lambert.[63]
LTN focuses on helping senior executives
in technology-intensive companies understand where and how they
may be able to reduce time, money and risk from interacting with
the academic research base. This is achieved both in one-to-one
meetings and at sector specific meetings.
— Enhance the supply capacity of the
university research base.
LTN has formed new systems and structures
within the university base to increase its ability to work with
industry—see the section above titled LTN Structure.
— Address the mismatch between industry
demand and university supply.
Individual executives in technology-intensive
companies need support in identifying which of their many projects
may be enhanced by interacting with research-based academics and
vice versa.
LTN assists both business people and
academics prepare project proposals for working with counter parties
ensuring that they set realistic expectations of what both parties
will need to contribute and gain from the collaboration.
LTN then promotes these projects to
the relevant community generating as many high quality responses
as it can, again helping responses to be drafted which correctly
address all the key deliverables and expectations of the proposal.
LTN subsequently facilitates and coordinates
meetings with academics and technology transfer officers as requested
by the companies.
LTN deliberately restricts its focus on the
following basis:
— Exclusive focus on interactions between
business and the university research base.
LTN has designed and operates a system
building interactions between businesses and university-based
researchers in 4, 5 and 5* departments.
Businesses and universities can gain
significant mutual benefit from interactions outside the research
base; either with non-research parts of research-intensive departments
or with departments which are not research-intensive. LTN does
not assist these interactions as our experience shows that they
involve different individuals in both the business and university
operating with non-parallel motives and mechanisms to their research-intensive
colleagues causing there to be little, if any, synergy.
— Exclusive focus on interactions targeting
technology innovations and expertise.
LTN works with a very wide range of
businesses and university departments.
LTN does not intermediate between businesses
and departments researching in the humanities, arts, classics,
etc as this would require different skills within LTN, different
individuals from the business community and different modes of
interaction between them and their university partners. We consider
that there are no synergies to justify the divergence in focus.
— Strict focus on "market-making".
LTN's mission is to help companies
(based anywhere) access the research base as efficiently, effectively
and economically as possible. Once suitable demand from a business
has been generated we market it to as many departments as possible
which can credibly deliver suitable solutions. While London's
research base is our core supplier, we have passed demand to organisations
in other regions better suited to the projects.
— The requirement to be absolutely
"mechanism neutral".
LTN gives exactly the same level of
support to all types of interactions between businesses and universities
whether they involve the transfer of cash between the partners
or not: LTN does not charge for its services and has no commercial
interest in the outcomes of its networking. This is essential
if businesses and academics are to accept LTN as an honest and
commercially disinterested partner and is enabled by LTN being
funded by the LDA, central government and the EU.
By contrast, University Technology
Transfer Offices naturally focus on interactions which promote
their particular university (rather than university interaction
in general) and which gain revenues for their offices (eg licensing
and spin-out) rather than suiting the aspirations of the researchers
and industrialists which may have no direct and immediate revenue
potential (eg joint publication and student placement) but which
may develop into longer term relationships and collaborations.
LONDON TECHNOLOGY
NETWORK OUTPUTS
AND OUTCOMES
FOR THE
YEAR 2003-04
Business demand for interacting with the academic
research base through LTN is strong, with many senior technology
attendees from London, the UK and beyond attending LTN events
and asking for specific support. This has resulted in a mass of
new relationships between academics and companies as shown below.
ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS ATTENDANCE AT LTN EVENTS
(2003-04)
| Attendee level |
CEO | R&D |
Business Development | Other
|
| Board | 79 | 12
| 11 | 7 |
| Senior Manager | | 78
| 48 | 64 |
| Manager/R&D Eng | |
113 | 44 | 92 |
| Total % | 15% | 39%
| 20% | 26% |
| | |
| |
| Company size | London
| South East | Other UK
| Non-UK |
| SME | 87 | 64
| 23 | 4 |
| National >250 staff | 13
| 8 | 8 | |
| Multi-national >250 staff | 42
| 51 | 14 | 8
|
| Total | 142 | 123
| 45 | 12 |
| | |
| |
ANALYSIS OF COMPANY-UNIVERSITY INTERACTIONS (2003-04)
| Source | All projects
| New to department | % New
|
| LTN | 181 | 158
| 87 |
| Bus Fel | 198 | 99
| 24 |
| University | 90 | 54
| 13 |
| Other | 153 | 110
| 25 |
| Total | 622 | 421
| |
| | |
|
| Team size | Projects | % projects
|
| 1 | 211 | 34
|
| 2 | 180 | 29
|
| 3 | 113 | 18
|
| 4 | 43 | 7 |
| 5+ | 75 | 12
|
| Total | 622 |
|
| | |
Of the 622 negotiations initiated above, a remarkable 236
(38%) have been initiated as collaborative projects.
CONCLUSIONS
LTN addresses lack of industry pull for university technology-based
expertise by understanding the business executive's needs for
every project it supports. In addition, LTN's aggregation of the
regional HEI supply capacity gives businesses access to a scale
and scope of expertise which would otherwise be too complex, confusing
and time consuming to justify their effort.
LTN addresses the potential unwillingness of the HEI sector
to work with businesses by training and supporting a large cohort
of research scientists across the sector to act departmentally
giving new information on what their colleagues are willing and
able to do with business. By targeting business enquiries to identified
research scientists when it is already clear that the enquiry
matches their capabilities and aspirations, a significantly higher
success rate is achieved in both relative (%) and absolute (number)
terms. The LTN role is absolutely compatible with the role of
Technology Transfer Offices, which are advised of all projects
and intervene whenever they deem it relevant.
LTN's role as an honest and impartial broker is fundamental
to gaining the trust of all the key stakeholders without which
the process as a whole would fail. While being a Company Limited
by Guarantee and not-for-profit clearly help, funding which permits
LTN to be financially disinterested in the outcomes of individual
HEI-industry collaborations and interactions is critical.
The LTN process has resulted in many businesses engaging
with departments for the first time. While it is too early to
discern any impact on regional productivity, demand from business
appears strong and most businesses (of whatever size) report that
they will be repeat customers for LTN.
Only a minority of the interactions between university-based
research academics and industrial counter parties target, or result
in, the creation of new IPR so uncertainty over the sharing of
IP rights is not a major inhibitor for most interactions. This
confirms research data from the USA which indicates that companies
need to have worked with academics on a number of projects before
they will commission research generating new IP[64]and
that even companies who licence IP from universities gain greater
value from other interactions than they do from the licences per
se.[65]
APPENDICES
A: LIST OF
THE DEPARTMENTS
HAVING LTN BUSINESS
FELLOWS
Birkbeck College
Computer Science.
Crystallography.
Brunel University
Biological Sciences.
Information Systems and Computing.
Cleaner Electronics Research.
Mechanical Engineering.
General Engineering.
City University
Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.
Computer Science.
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Design.
Media and Communications.
Imperial College London
Reproductive and Developmental Biology.
Computing.
Material Science.
Electronic Engineering.
Physical Sciences.
Engineering.
Civil Engineering.
Immunology.
Chemical Engineering.
Molecular Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
Paediatrics.
Biological Sciences.
Academic Surgical Unit.
Mathematics.
Earth Science and Engineering.
Biological Sciences.
Physical Sciences.
Chemistry.
King's College London
Neuroscience Research.
Motility & Cytoskeleton Group.
Radiological Sciences.
Physics.
Institute of Psychiatry.
GKT Dental Institute.
Oral Medicine and Pathology.
MRC Centre for Development Biology.
Computer Science.
Neuroscience.
Mechanical Engineering.
Pharmacy.
Kingston University
Arts and Social Sciences.
London Institute
London College of Fashion.
Commerce and Enterprise.
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Infectious and Tropical Diseases.
London South Bank University
Food Science.
National Physical Laboratory
NPL Materials Centre.
NIBSC
Division of Haematology.
Bacteriology Division.
Public Health Laboratory Services
Enteric and Respiratory Virus Lab
Queen Mary, University of London
Computer Science.
Electronic Engineering.
Mathematics Sciences.
IRC in Biomedical Materials.
Physics.
Engineering.
The Ernest Cooke Clinical Microvascular Unit.
Experimental Therapeutics.
Royal Holloway, University of London
Information Systems Group.
Physics.
Psychology.
Biological Sciences.
Royal Veterinary College
Silsoe Research Institute.
School of Pharmacy
Pharmacology.
Centre for Drug Delivery Research.
South Bank University
Electronic Engineering.
St Georges Hospital Medical School
Biochemistry, Immunology and Cardiological Science.
Cellular and Molecular Medicine.
The Institute of Cancer Research
Cancer Research UK Centre.
Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research Group.
University College London
Computer Science.
Oncology.
Geomatic Engineering.
Biomaterials.
Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research.
Electronic and Electrical Engineering.
Pharmacology.
Mechanical Engineering.
Physics and Astronomy.
Civil Engineering.
Bartlett School of Architecture.
Mathematics.
Biology.
Anatomy and Developmental Biology.
Rheumatology Unit.
Chemistry.
Hepatology.
Slade School of Fine Art.
London Centre for Nanotechnology.
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Multimedia Production Centre.
University of Greenwich
Materials—Chemical and Life Science.
University of Westminster
Electronic Engineering.
Centre for Media, Arts and Design.
B: EXAMPLES OF
COMPANY UNIVERSITY
PROJECTS
1. Collaborative research projects
Kodak's Harrow based R&D lab is eager to access the latest
technologies and research in the move from silver to silicon.
Eleven senior Kodak researchers have attended London Technology
Network's targeted networking events to explore potential collaborations
with LTN Business Fellows. So far, this collaboration has resulted
in two research projects and series of other engagements programme.
2. Student Placements and funding PhDs
Electronic Arts, the world's largest computer entertainment
provider, wanted to invest in academic research to shorten development
cycles and gain access to future recruits for the company. Thanks
to London Technology Network, a pre-existing informal relationship
with the Department of Computer Science at University College
London (UCL) has developed into a fully-fledged, commercial research
collaboration on visualisation and modelling.
"The London Technology Network provides a vital service,
ensuring that businesses and academics really benefit from each
other's expertise."
Ian Shaw, Chief Technology Officer, Electronic Arts
3. Material testing and advisory services
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has two DTI- funded
projects underway in the measurement and performance of biomaterials,
and required commercial material for testing. Cook Surgical, a
division of the leading healthcare device company, has a novel
cellular matrix product for soft tissue repair, and required access
to new areas of the surgical market. Following an introduction
by London Technology Network, Cook Surgical agreed to supply NPL
with testing material for calibration, whilst its sales and marketing
manager joined the NPL Industrial Advisory Group.
September 2004
57
www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme economy/LabourProductivity.xls. Back
58
www.dti.gov.uk/training development/natrepfd.pdf. Back
59
195.194.167.103/Results/all/all.xls. Back
60
www.london-innovation.org.uk/jumpstart/jumpstart brochure.pdf. Back
61
www.statistics.gov.uk/j)pfdir/berd1 103.pdf. Back
62
www.lda.gov.uk/uploaded files/documents/18 523 UnlockinigPotential-KnowledgeCommmercialisation.pdf. Back
63
www.hmtreasurv.gov.uk/media/EA556/lambert review final 450.pdf. Back
64
www.autni.net/pubs/journal/00/perspectives.pdf. Back
65
www.researchoninnovation.org/tiip/archive/2003 5c.htm. Back
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