After giving an overview of the evolution of the British university commercialisation sector, Jennings went on to address issues in the changing landscape of UK tech transfer.

We would welcome suggestions for which universities to consider and my colleague, Gregg Bayes-Brown, will be surveying the community over the next two weeks.

The Global Corporate Venturing Symposium, run by our sister title, was a suitable opportunity to launch the Research to Commercialisation Club to bring together the leading research centres, such as Uni-Hospital in Zurich and Cleveland Clinic and Partners Healthcare in the US, with the entrepreneurs and corporations that offer investment, partnerships and exit routes to academic-inspired start-ups.

Universities underestimate the years or even decades an idea could spend in research before reaching potential commercialisation, and governments and other agencies should fund this accordingly. Venture

For a sense of scale, at $475bn it would be bigger than Argentina's economy.

Tony Stanco, chief executive of NCET2, said the problem universities faced at the earliest stage of their research was in deciding which ideas might lead to which outcomes: an IPO or trade sale/license.

Should sufficient support to start-ups be provided alongside crowdfunded equity backing, it will lead to more firms, more jobs, and more innovation all round.