The US university has formed an industry-university partnership to advance aspects such as sustainable agriculture in the whiskey distilling industry.

Setting up investment committees made up of industry, venture capital and academics is a way to ensure limited proof-of-concept funds are allocated fairly to UK universities.

The £40m recently allocated by the UK government to proving university research is commercially viable shouldn't just benefit Oxford, Cambridge and London, say sector pundits.

Many of the UK's universities have adopted recommendations to lower equity stakes in the companies they commercialise to at or below 25%.

The US university recently created an office of innovation as part of a drive to commercialise more of the research coming out of its labs.

Mart Maasik has stepped down as chief executive of UniTartu Ventures at the University of Tartu to join a $63 spinout investment fund.

Vincent Coole, who built a programme University of Birmingham programme to commercialise technology before creating a spinout, has joined Trinity College Dublin.

The university is the latest academic institution in the Asian country to launch an investment fund to support spinouts.