Universities and investors across the world are ready to tackle the next global challenges.

Environmental, social and corporate governance are increasingly important factors when setting up spinouts and investing in them, guests have been telling Global University Venturing on its podcast, Talking Tech Transfer, over the past several months. Social enterprises and other types of non-profit companies are also having a moment at institutions as illustrious as University of Oxford and University College London. London School of Economics and Political Science is leading a project called Aspect – an acronym for A Social Sciences Platform for Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Transformation – that focuses exclusively on commercialising research emerging from social sciences departments. Its membership has grown to 19 universities, including York, Sheffield and Manchester – whose heads of tech transfer all spoke to GUV for a feature on the north of England in this issue. Oxford, which is also a member of Aspect, has long been a pioneer in commercialising social sciences – Mark Mann took home the GUV award for Personality of the Year 2019 for his work in the area – and a recent analysis by its tech transfer office, Oxford University Innovation (OUI), showed it had 24 active companies working in the cleantech space. It is hardly a surprise then that OUI partnered venture capital firm Global Accelerated Ventures this past quarter to set up a $25m special purpose investment vehicle targeting conservation-focused startups. A venture studio will aim to launch between 13 and 20 companies tackling climate change challenges over the next two years – challenges that range from biodiversity loss, the energy crisis and human food security to landscape change. Some investors, like Chalmers Ventures – the incubator and venture arm of Chalmers University of Technology – in Gothenburg, Sweden, actively encourage portfolio companies to pursue the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. An interview with Chalmers Ventures’ new chief executive Sara Wallin is up next on Talking Tech Transfer. Main Sequence Ventures, the Australia-based venture firm set up by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), this week collected A$250m ($194m) for its second fund that will continue to focus on key objectives including feeding 10 billion people; humanity-scale healthcare; increasing industrial productivity; developing next-generation computing; and accessing space. The second fund will also add a sixth remit to the firm’s mission: decarbonisation. Martin Duursma, the Main Sequence partner who will lead the effort on decarbonisation technologies, explained the firm’s decision: “We are entering a transformational and critical decade for addressing climate change globally; Australia has a natural opportunity…

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Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the editor of Global University Venturing, host of the Beyond the Breakthrough interview podcast and responsible for the monthly GUV Gazette (sign up here for free).