The universities of Aston, Birmingham, Cranfield, Keele, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and Warwick plan to launch a unified intellectual property office.

Midlands Innovation, a group of eight UK universities located in the English Midlands, announced plans yesterday to collaborate on technology transfer.

Midlands Innovation will provide a unified intellectual property office for the universities of Aston, Birmingham, Cranfield, Keele, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and Warwick.

The operation will seek to drive research and entrepreneurship in the Midlands, which is a key growth region for the British government, and said it intends to build up the local innovation ecosystem to the point where…