Dear NIE members,

You may be interested in the following meeting of the R&D society.
For any questions please contact Amy Scales as noted at the bottom
of this message.


Meeting of the R&D Society Special Interest Group on Innovation and R&D
Management Best Practice:

"Commercialising University Technology"

Speakers: Peter Hiscocks, Raymond Wolfson, Dr Alison Fielding, Heather
Tewkesbury

Tuesday 13 May 2003

1.30pm tea.   2.00pm start.   Finishes at approx. 5.00pm 

Venue:  Institute of Biology, 20 Queensberry Place, South Kensington,
London.  Nearest tube South Kensington.  Map at
http://www.iob.org/default.asp?edname=242.htm&cont_id=7&n=9

Fees:  R&D Society members £20 (including all members of staff from
Corporate member organisations).  Non-members £30.  Please contact
secretariat (details at foot of this notice) for bookings and payments.


Synopses and speaker biographies:

Introduction
In recent years there has been a rapid expansion in the commercial
exploitation of University Technology.  Although there has been a strong
influence on the creation of new business, other routes to technology
transfer still exist.  The aim of this meeting is to look at a number of
technology transfer mechanisms and to discuss their suitability to different
situations.  The 3 formal presentations will be followed by an open
discussion about university technology transfer.

Peter Hiscocks: Incubation of New Ventures in Cambridge: an Opportunity and
a Challenge
Cambridge University sits at the centre of a high technology cluster
covering biotechnology, telecoms and IT.  Within the University there
are a
number of functions which support technology transfer, company start-ups and
entrepreneurship. In this talk Peter will describe how the University
supports and facilitates the exploitation of new technologies.

Raymond Wolfson and Alison Fielding: University Technology Transfer- A
Public Private Partnership
The University of Leeds has recently restructured its technology transfer
and exploitation operations and entered into a partnership with a private
company called Axiomlab. They have jointly formed a new company called
Techtran to exploit the University's technology.  This talk will describe
how the business will operate and explain why the approach is novel in the
UK.

Heather Tewkesbury: Technology Translation: The Faraday Way
There are currently 24 Faraday Partnerships, in a range of industrial
sectors and technology areas which exist to facilitate interaction between
companies and academics within the UK. Each Faraday Partnership employs
Technology Translators to assist in this process, using a variety of
research and technology transfer mechanisms. In this talk Heather Tewkesbury
will describe how the process operates based upon her experience in The
Industrial Maths Faraday Partnership.

Speaker Biographies:

Peter Hiscocks
Peter Hiscocks, Director of the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre spent 5
years at Fisons Ltd, 4 years at TI Research, 7 years at Scientific Generics,
and 7 years at Integral Inc, in a variety of roles including marketing and
strategic decision making.
Peter's research interests include innovation management, entrepreneurship
and new business ventures, and organisational design.

Raymond Wolfson MA, ACA
After graduating in Physics at Oxford Raymond Wolfson spent 13 years in
business roles in BNFL, including 5 years as internal management consultant;
3 years training as a chartered accountant at Ernst and Young; 11 years in
University of Leeds Innovations Limited, the former technology transfer
company for the University of Leeds.  He was originally Finance Director and
then, due to the number of new spin-out companies, became Investment
Director.
Raymond is currently Director of the Intellectual Property Unit at the
University of Leeds.

Dr Alison Fielding
Alison Fielding is the Managing Director of Techtran.  She holds an MBA from
Manchester Business School and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Glasgow
University. Alison has recently transferred from her role as an Investment
Manager in Axiomlab having previously worked for Zeneca, McKinsey & Company,
and her own start-up, thebusyexec.com.

Heather Tewkesbury
Heather Tewkesbury is a Technology Translator with the Industrial
Mathematics Faraday Partnership, hosted by the Smith Institute. She has a
first degree in mathematics, and a PhD in modelling heat transfer in
chocolate solidification from the University of Birmingham's School of
Chemical Engineering. She then continued working for Cadbury Trebor Bassett,
as Modelling Development Manager, before taking her current role two years
ago.  The Smith Institute's team of 6 Technology Translators facilitate
industrial collaborations with UK academics in the enabling disciplines of
mathematics and computing, using a range of long- and short-term mechanisms.
Recent projects have included development of a milk flow meter, scheduling
production lines in a textiles factory, and customer population modelling.
Details of these and further projects can be found on www.smithinst.ac.uk

The objective of this Special Interest Group of The R&D Society is to
encourage and facilitate UK organisations to identify and implement
Innovation and R&D Best Practice wherever possible, arranging regular
workshops and presentations.  For further information on The R&D Society
visit www.rdsoc.org


Amy Scales
Administrative Secretary
The R&D Society
20-22 Queensberry Place
LONDON
SW7 2DZ

tel. 020 7581 8333 x 237
fax 020 7589 3606
[log in to unmask]
www.rdsoc.org