Russ Cummings, who moves into the role from chief investment officer, told Global University Venturing he was taking over a firm in an exceptionally strong position at a very exciting stage in its development.

This survey - see table here - is our first attempt to take the lid off tech transfer and open the door to more fluid conversations between the guardians of university intellectual property (IP) and the investors and companies looking to utilise the vast libraries of technology held by TTOs.

Lessons from Quebec City, which looked at Accelerators as the Next Generation of Business Schools.

Lesa Mitchell, vice-president of innovation and networks at the Kauffman Foundation, said: "This research supports the notion that graduate students have an important role in commercialising their inventions from the university lab and they need support models to help them advance to the commercial marketplace."

For a sense of scale, at $475bn it would be bigger than Argentina's economy.

University funds have a unique opportunity to bridge the gap to commercialisation.