Cambridge Enterprise (CE), the UK university´s commercialization group, showed a record £10.2m ($15m) income from licensing, consultancy and equity transactions last year.

Of the total, £8.3m was returned to Cambridge University after a 22% rise from the previous year.

Last year, 116 licenses and 183 consultancy contracts were completed and more than £468,000 returned to CE´s evergreen seed funds through equity transactions. CE holds equity in 68 companies, including Plastic Logic, a flexible semiconductor company, and organic solar panels maker Eight19, both from its Cavendish Laboratory.

Tony Raven, who took over as chief executive of Cambridge Enterprise last year, said: “The growth enjoyed by Cambridge Enterprise this year [2011] demonstrates the value that industry attaches to Cambridge research, and the contribution the University is making to our national economic recovery.

“Universities such as Cambridge have an important role to play in supporting an innovation-led economic recovery, through collaborative research, technology licensing, consultancy projects and new company formation.”