Trinity College Dublin hires Coole to manage knowledge exchange

Irish university Trinity College Dublin (TCD) has hired Vincent Coole, previously the head of academic consultancy services at the University of Birmingham in the UK, as director of knowledge exchange.

Coole joins TCD’s commercialisation arm Trinity Innovation, which is run by chief innovation and enterprise officer Michelle Olmstead.

At the University of Birmingham, Coole was instrumental in building the Operating Division programme. This enables researchers to commercialise their technology and find clients before formally incorporating a business.

Coole previously spoke to Global University Venturing about that programme, saying: “Rather than just rushing a spinout out the door, it’s giving them time to develop. It’s not necessarily holding back the spinout because they’re being enabled to go out and gather their networks, learn about the market they’re in and generate revenue.”

The Operating Division programme was selected as the basis for a British government-funded project dubbed Shared Technology Transfer Office to Accelerate the Growth of Self-Funded Spinouts, backed by the University of Birmingham, among others, and led by the University of the Arts London to enable smaller universities to create more spinouts.

Trinity College Dublin has a portfolio of 40 active spinouts, according to the most recent survey of tech transfer offices in Ireland, and these companies have created more than 500 jobs.

The university also played a pioneering role in establishing the €60m University Bridge Fund together with University College Dublin and Atlantic Bridge in 2016 — the first university venture fund in Ireland. Both institutions also backed the €80m University Bridge Fund II, attracting University College Cork and the University of Galway as limited partners, in 2021.