Universities, founders and investors have thrown their weight behind the Government’s bid to boost growth by converting more of the UK’s world-leading research into successful businesses at the One Year, One Mission event at the Tate Modern to mark the anniversary of the Independent Review of Spinouts.
The Government has repeatedly – in its Manifesto, Industrial Strategy, Budget and most recently the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech – committed to creating more spinouts, companies formed from university breakthroughs.
UK Universities create globally competitive companies, which raised £1.66bn in equity funding in 2023 (9.5% of equity raised by UK companies), according to the Government’s industrial strategy.
In 2023 the Independent Review of Spinouts looked at the most successful spinout ecosystems internationally, and in the UK, to identify best practices to support spinouts to generate greater investment and grow faster in the UK.
TenU, which represents leading universities’ technology transfer teams, is backing the Government to build a thriving, UK-wide spinout ecosystem by fully implementing recommendations of the independent spinout review – including increasing the amount of proof-of-concept funding available. The call is backed by the reports’ authors, Professor Irene Tracey CBE, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Doctor Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner of Cambridge Innovation Capital.
Over the last 12 months universities, founders and investors have aligned behind the recommendations of the review and, working with Research England and the Government, have made progress in implementing them.
- The Spinout Review recommended adoption of the USIT guides led by TenU, which have proposed a blue-print for spinout deals, including founder-friendly equity stakes, that speed up and simplify the process of setting up a spinout. In September, Research England said 39 universities had adopted the best practice approach – a key recommendation from the review. Analysis shows that the average amount of university equity in spinout businesses has been declining over time.
- More and more universities are collaborating with each other and other institutions, creating innovation ecosystems – another critical recommendation. Research England is providing over £4,700,000 among 13 successful collaborations bringing together 49 different higher education providers.
- The report also recommended an increase in proof-of-concept funding, which allows academic inventors to test and demonstrate the viability of their ideas as marketable technologies. At the Budget the Government announced £40m over five years in proof-of-concept funding. TenU has described this as a welcome move but argues that going further could increase the number of successful spinouts (see below).
- TenU will be leading discussions with the sector and government to underline the importance of POC funding to attract domestic and foreign direct investment and optimise implementation of proof-of-concept funding across the country to make sure it is deployed in the most cost-efficient way.
