The UK institution has secured financing to launch a shared tech transfer office that will help develop more spinouts from the arts, humanities and social sciences.
The University of the Arts London (UAL) has been awarded £415,980 ($552,000) in financing from public innovation agency UK Research and Innovation’s Connecting Capability Fund to launch a shared tech transfer that will support smaller universities that lack the infrastructure to sustain early-stage companies.
UAL and its director of enterprise and commercialisation, Gavin Clark, will lead the pilot project, dubbed Shared Technology Transfer Office to Accelerate the Growth of Self-Funded Spinouts (STAGE). The project also involves UK academic institutions Lancaster University, the University of Warwick, the University of the West of England, the University of Birmingham and Oxford Brookes University, and specialist partners Kindling Ventures and social sciences consultant Mark Mann.
Listen to our interview with Mark Mann on the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast to learn more about social sciences commercialisation in the UK.
STAGE will focus on spinouts from the arts, humanities and social sciences (collectively known as SHAPE) — areas that are typically unsuited for established spinout support developed for sectors such as life sciences and physical sciences — and will seek to create a framework for bringing this research to market.
Specifically, STAGE will create a virtual business unit to allow ventures to trade before formal incorporation — a model developed by the University of Birmingham — and offer business mentoring and support. It will also collect data on commercialisation costs to improve the funding landscape for spinouts in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
The pilot scheme is expected to deliver insights by spring 2025.
Trevor Keeble, pro vice-chancellor, research knowledge exchange and enterprise, at UAL, said: “This funding marks an exciting step towards driving innovation in the creative industries. Many of the groundbreaking ideas born in SHAPE disciplines don’t fit into the traditional tech-driven spinout model, and our pilot aims to create a new pathway for these ideas to thrive commercially.
“At UAL we are proud to play a central role in this pioneering initiative, helping to shape the future landscape of entrepreneurship.”
Thierry Heles
Thierry Heles is editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.
