TenU celebrated a successful fourth year, launching the TenU RISE mentorship scheme, hosting the Innovation Summit to unveil USIT for Software, and fostering international collaboration through a Cambridge, MA study tour. Highlights included progress on the Spinout Review and momentum around proof-of-concept (PoC) funding. Looking ahead, TenU remains committed to driving research commercialisation for UK economic growth. Read more in this post.

With the government’s new Industrial Strategy under development and the Spending Review planned for 2025, there is a lot of buzz about what the UK can do to build a strong economy that is driven by innovation. TenU will be making the case that a robust commitment to proof-of-concept (POC) funding should be top of the list if the UK really wants to kickstart economic growth. Access the podcast here.

In 2024 we launched TenU RISE, our new mentoring programme for technology transfer professionals. In true TenU style, we are taking advantage of our global reach, with mentors from our TenU Future Leaders Programme alumni base being matched with mentees from across the sector. In this post we take stock of the first cohort’s successes.

On 19^th November 2024 TenU’s event, One Year One Mission: Celebrating the Spinout Review, brought people together from across the innovation landscape to celebrate the impressive progress that has already been made in implementing key recommendations, only one year after the launch of the Spinout Review. Read more about the key takeaways in this post.

Universities, founders and investors will today throw their weight behind the Government’s bid to boost growth by converting more of the UK’s world-leading research into successful businesses.

Proof of Concept (POC) is the critical stage in which academic inventors test and demonstrate the viability of a research idea as a marketable technology. A successful POC stage provides the insights necessary for technical and commercial stakeholders to decide on forming a company and investing further resources. However, POC funding in the UK is scarce, which strains early-stage technology development and hampers the UK's ambitions to be the best it can be. Here we explain what the government can do bridge the gap and drive economic growth.

At TenU, we are committed to equipping professionals and innovators with the tools they need to navigate the complex landscape of technology transfer and intellectual property management. Our two comprehensive guides, The USIT Guide and USIT for Software, are designed to help you maximise the potential of your innovations, whether you're working with physical inventions or software solutions.

In the UK, 39% of the 100 fastest growing companies have a foreign-born founder or co-founder, despite the foreign-borns accounting for only 14.5% of the UK population. The same is seen in the U.S., where immigrants account for more than a quarter of all business ownership. International talent is an asset to a country’s economic growth; however, recruiting and retaining this talent comes with obstacles and challenges.

TenU – which represents world-leading universities including Imperial, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, Manchester and Edinburgh – has joined forces with a group of top investors and professional services firms to launch a new expert guide for the speedy and efficient formation of software spinouts from cutting-edge university research.

Diversity is a powerful component of the ideal Startup Team and creating an inclusive company culture is one of the ingredients for success. According to Forbes, diversity increases creativity, improves decision-making and innovative problem solving. Diversity also fosters a positive work environment, strengthening the team and leading to higher productivity and successful growth. Diverse companies report almost 20% more innovation revenue as demonstrated in a study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group. And yet, entrepreneurship is still seen as a ‘bit of a boy’s game’.

Offering a unique platform to foster collaboration among founders, investors, and universities with the goal of driving innovation for economic growth.

Following official endorsement by UK Government in its Independent Review of University Spin-Out Companies in November 2023, the USIT Guide has achieved further global recognition over the past 12 months since its launch. In the UK, the Government has followed guidance from the USIT Guide to commit to accelerate towards university-friendly university policies and develop standardised spin-out term sheets to expedite the process of venture creation.

Running a startup company and leading it towards growth and success requires a certain combination of skills: the ability to build a business plan, create hiring and training plans, develop a brand, oversee resource allocation, act as main point of communication to stakeholders and customer base, create a value proposition, attract investment, and the list goes on. University spinouts also require the technical skills to develop a particular technology or service.

TenU announces the appointment of Tim Haines, Executive Partner and Managing Director at Abingworth LLP, a leading global life sciences venture investment firm, as its new Chair. Tim becomes Chair effective immediately, taking over from Professor Andy Neely, Senior Pro-Vice Chancellor of Enterprise and Business Relations at the University of Cambridge, who has held the position since 2022.

Simon Hepworth, Director of Enterprise at Imperial College London, has taken on the role of president of TenU. He takes over from Paul Van Dun, General Manager of KU Leuven Research & Development (LRD).

The Independent Review of University Spin-out Companies recently published by the UK government recommends that TTOs with a lower pipeline of disclosures team up to offer joint TTO services. In this timely event, TenU convened four speakers to share best practice on collaborative initiatives designed to build critical mass for thriving ecosystems.

In 2023, our efforts focused largely on the launch of the USIT Guide in April and on supporting the UK Government in the delivery of the Independent Review of University Spin-out Companies. We were delighted to find that the Review had recognised the many strengths of the university innovation sector, featuring the USIT Guide prominently as an example of best practice. Read on for other exciting developments.

TenU welcomes the UK Government’s Independent Review of University Spin-out Companies. The review puts forward recommendations to accelerate the UK towards the rapid creation of spin-outs on market-competitive terms and encourages further collaboration across the UK’s innovation ecosystem. Its recommendations, if successfully implemented, should enhance the economic and societal impact of university-inspired innovation, which continues to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges.

An exciting panel of speakers from leading US and UK venture capital firms and technology transfer offices came together in London to discuss the origins, merits and impact of international initiatives to support university-investor negotiations leading to investments in spin-outs. Listen to the podcast, which was brought to you by Global University Ventures, as the contributors of the US-BOLT and the USIT Guide discuss motivation, challenges, and how speed is more important than perfection.

Hannah Burnau, the first TenU-MIT TLO Intern, writes about her trip to MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was sponsored by TenU. The trip included meeting with the team of MIT’s Technology Licensing Office (MIT TLO), as well as with Ananay Aguilar, Head of TenU, exploring the campus and visiting the MIT Museum. A science graduate and JD candidate, Hannah shares her reflections and adds: “I hope to work in the technology transfer and patent field.”