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News

18 February 2010

Spin Outs from Irish Universities Trebled in 2009

The number of new enterprises set up from Irish third level colleges increased dramatically in 2009 according to new figures from the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in Irish third level institutes. More than three times as many start-up operations were created, compared to the previous year.

35 spin out companies were created in 2009 across the ten main Irish third level Institutes, about half in the information technology space and half in the bioscience/food arena. FRKelly is pleased to have been involved in securing patent rights for many of these new companies.

Dr. John Scanlan, Director, Office of Commercialisation, NUI Maynooth, said: "These new figures are hard evidence that supporting university based research works, and that it can result in the formation of sustainable, viable corporate entities. In the current business climate, the commercialisation of research from our universities can make an essential contribution to economic recovery, and these figures are proof of that. What this process also demonstrates is that Ireland competes very favourably with other countries, in terms of funding invested in university based research and the production of spin out enterprises. In the U.S., where this activity is very mature and very valued, the equivalent research funding figure of about €50 million is spent per spin out created, while this figure drops to about €30 million per spin out for the UK."

The new figures also show that the number of licenses issued, where new technologies or processes created by campus-based research teams are licensed to manufacturers or developers, have risen significantly, from just 33 on average per annum to 102 last year.

The main factor driving this progress has been the Technology Transfer Strengthening Initiative (TTSI), set up by Enterprise Ireland in 2007, which was designed to increase the commercialisation of intellectual property in Irish universities and to transfer this into industry. A key element of the TTSI was the establishment of Technology Transfer Offices across the ten institutes at the outset of the initiative.