A few years ago when we were launching Global University Venturing (GUV) the idea that academic institutions could be more supportive of their student and/or faculty startup ideas was deemed relatively fanciful.

It has, after all, only been about 15 years since a chess prodigy, David Norwood, had the idea to try and fund startups from Oxford University’s chemistry department and came up with the innovative business idea that is now the listed IP Group, ranked in the FTSE 250 (for its GUV award citation last year click here).

But what has worked in the UK is increasingly working in other countries, such as Allied Minds or IP Group in the US, or Tsinghua’s Unigroup in China and Imprimatur Capital in emerging markets.

However, the growing sophistication or maturity of universities in their intellectual property commercialisation has been seemingly lagging by public research institutes (PRIs).

While there might be about 300 top quality research institutes in the US, there’s a similar number in Europe. A group of PRIs, Aalto University, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), European Industrial Research Management Association (EIRMA), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), ESADE Business and Law Schools , European Southern Observatory (ESO), European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (EuropeanXFEL) and Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), have come together to form the Attract project to create innovation out of their technology developed to meet their research goals.

There has been praise for the pioneering work by the US Department of Energy through Arpa-E but the complications of making this area an equal success to university venturing remains clear. An invite-only dinner organised by communications group Science Business following our sister paper Global Corporate Venturing’s London Symposium in June showed how far the worlds of investors and scientists had to travel before their interests could align. We will be working on a report for Attract this summer so to share your experiences and interests in this area, please let me know at jmawson@mawsonia.com