Irene Tracey and Andrew Williamson, co-authors of the UK spinout review, discuss how it settled the debate around equity as 49 universities adopt recommendation.
A year ago, Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Andrew Williamson, managing partner of venture capital firm Cambridge Innovation Capital, published their UK government-sponsored report into the spinout ecosystem with a list of 11 recommendations on how to uplift the sector.
Among these points was a call to adopt the USIT Guide, a template for term sheet negotiations that asks universities to take a stake of between 10% and 25% in life science and physical science spinouts. Today this has been adopted by 49 institutions throughout the country.
Williamson says he’s glad the “myopic” focus on equity stakes has been put to rest and the conversation can shift to the great work that is being done at universities. One of the ways that work will be highlighted is with a database of all spinouts from UK universities, due to be released in spring 2025, thanks to the support of Research England, whose chair Jessica Corner leads the fireside chat in this episode of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.
But what more could, or should, be done? Research England has also committed capital to a series of pilot projects for joint tech transfer offices — such as one led by the University of the Arts London focused on social sciences and humanities — and the review led to the creation of a £40m ($50m) pot for proof-of-concept funding.
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Thierry Heles
Thierry Heles is editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.
