The Next Leap

How does university research become a real-world product like vitamin D-fortified oatmeal, warfarin or Gatorade? The Next Leap is an interview show with the experts responsible for this process — from tech transfer practitioners to founders to lawyers, and others. Subscribe now for the first episode, dropping Tuesday, 18 March.

The story of technology transfer begins with Harry Steenbock’s discovery of how to create vitamin D- fortified food. Steenbock, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, established the first-ever university tech transfer office not only to license his own invention to industry but also to support his colleagues present and future to do the same. This year, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) celebrates its 100th anniversary. But while WARF has forever changed how universities go about creating real-world applications for their research, it wasn’t all smooth sailing: because WARF was created decades before the Bayh-Dole Act (which gives US universities the right to exploit their IP), there were several run-ins with the government, regulators and industry both at home and internationally. Kevin Walters wrote his PhD on the history of WARF and now serves as the organisation’s public affairs associate. He explains why all of this could only have happened in a state known for its dairy industry and how Steenbock’s childhood days on a farm meant he managed to do something that paediatricians did not.

2025 marks 100 years since the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) became the first-ever tech transfer office. It’s been a very successful first century for the non-profit organisation as we heard last week, but that does pose an interesting challenge: how can WARF keep innovating and make sure it not only survives but thrives for another 100 years? The organisation is certainly not resting on its laurels. WARF today is split into six verticals and much like you’d expect, many of them are groundbreaking. There is, for example, WARF Therapeutics, a drug development accelerator run by just a handful of people that has already brought tens of millions of additional grant funding to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Today’s guests are Erik Iverson, who became CEO of WARF in 2016 and brought with him a deep passion for life sciences, having earlier worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Access to Advanced Health Institute. Also joining the show is Mike Partsch, WARF’s inaugural chief venture officer who brought with him not only venture capital experience but also a deep understanding of tech transfer and spinouts: he founded the first-ever biotech spinout out of Penn in 1990 (which successfully IPO’d a few years later).

Stuart Wilkinson, chief executive officer of Knowledge Exchange UK (the professional body for tech transfer practitioners in Britain), has personally experienced the myriad ways university research commercialisation can impact people’s lives. It’s given him a holistic view of the sector far beyond what his previous two decades focused on the University of Oxford might have you think. But while spinouts are the easiest story to tell, they’re just a small piece of the commercialisation puzzle. The majority of university IP gets out into the world through licensing agreements and R&D collaborations with existing businesses, or through consulting. That means the economy needs to be thriving: businesses need both the cash and the workforce to forge these partnerships. Having rebranded from PraxisAuril earlier this year, Knowledge Exchange UK is ready to play an increasingly big role in shaping how research commercialisation is done. One example is its plan to help its members better collaborate on a regional level to share resources and solve problems in ways that account for and benefit their locality. The organisation is also looking to drive forward the professionalisation of the sector. Here, Stuart ponders a proposal from his former Oxford colleague Tom Hockaday, who recently called for a Master’s degree in technology transfer… and why that means tech transfer is not unlike the evolution of the paramedics profession.

If you’ve never been in a licensing negotiation, you might think big pharma always has the upper hand over startups desperate to get a deal done to secure licensing fees and milestone payments. Actually, these are two parties that share the same goal, and sometimes, a startup has a product so good it holds all the cards. But is it always straightforward? Deal negotiations between pharma companies and biotechs are the bread and butter of Winsome Cheung, a partner in the life sciences transaction group at global law firm Covington where she’s represented clients on both sides of the table. Winsome — who, during her PhD in medicine, explored commercialising her research with Cambridge Enterprise — ponders how that experience went on to shape her thinking as a lawyer on today’s episode of The Next Leap podcast. We also talk about industry trends she’s observed in recent years, provisions in licensing contracts that could scupper M&A deals years down the line like exclusivity or reach-throughs, and why universities should have standardised templates in place for things like material transfer agreements. Let’s nerd out over contract law!

So, you’ve spun out of a university to sell your shiny new invention. How do you attract customers? You’ll need a marketing strategy, which isn’t a fancy way of saying “put ads on Google” or “post on social media”. Rather, marketing is everything that comes between your company and your customer. It’s the art of figuring out your value proposition (you have a technology, but what’s the product?), of crafting messages that resonate with your customers and your investors (they’re related but they must never be identical), and of evaluating markets to find traction. It will even help you decide whether you really should raise venture capital funding. Nicky Dibben runs Invention Marketing, helping deeptech founders build their marketing strategies. She’s worked with NG Studios (an accelerator run by Northern Gritstone and Deeptech Labs for startups emerging out of the ecosystem around the universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield). She’s also a mentor for initiatives like Founders at the University of Cambridge. Nicky shares her experiences mentoring startups, comparing ecosystems in Cambridge and northern England, offers tangible advice for founders, and ponders how “product” has become king of the hill even though that’s not the right focus. Find a copy of Nicky’s marketing framework here.

What does the future hold for quantum technologies, what are the pitfalls and how can academia, startups, industry and government work together to solve the challenges ahead? Earlier this month, I chaired a panel tackling these questions for Bristol Innovations‘ first Foresight Live event, featuring Ruth Oulton, professor of quantum photonics at the University of Bristol, Zoe Davidson, a research specialist in optical networks at telecoms firm BT, and Francesco Raffaelli, head of technology at secure communications startup KETS Quantum Security. I’m delighted to be able to share a full recording with you today. If you’re interested in attending the next Foresight Live event, grab tickets here and make sure you also sign up for the newsletter Foresight Digest. And if you’d rather watch the video of the panel, you can find that on BI Foresight, where you can also find a a summary write-up by myself.

Towards the end of last year, the University of the Arts London secured a grant from Research England to lead a consortium of six universities that would develop a shared TTO focused on creative and social sciences. The pilot project, dubbed Shared Technology Transfer Office to Accelerate the Growth of Self-Funded Spinouts (STAGE), has now come to a close so it’s the perfect time to reflect on what’s gone well and what needs to happen next. Gavin Clark, director of enterprise and commercialisation at the University of the Arts London, and Mark Mann, a consultant who helped bring the consortium together, join me to explain why they used a model from the University of Birmingham to build their project, how that approach works, and what the pitfalls are of wrangling six universities to say “yes” to an external tech transfer office run by specialists from Kindling Ventures. We also explore the importance of capturing data (which will be made public in the coming weeks and months), how the project has drawn international attention and even what it’s all meant on a more personal level.

There aren’t many university venture funds in central and eastern Europe but that could all be about to change if Károly Szántó has his way. The COO of OUVC, the venture fund and studio set up by Óbuda University in Budapest, is working on a playbook that other institutions in the region can use to create their own venture capital funds, an interest Károly has identified at several universities. But his ambition goes beyond just sharing his expertise with other universities, he is also working to bring funds from Western European universities in as co-investors. Today on the podcast, we’re heading to Hungary to find out how the ecosystem functions today, what’s still missing, and why OUVC is about to split it into two separate entities. We also talk about Károly’s own storied life, which includes work in 50 countries, finding his passion for university venturing when he first helped startups for a CVC, and what sailing across the Atlantic in 23 days taught him about startups.

How can universities instil the entrepreneurial mindset in faculty, staff and students? Is this even something you can teach? And if you can, what are some of the challenges and pitfalls? Figuring out the answers to these questions, and more, is a panel of experts from around the world: Kirsty Collinge, the head of research strategy at the University of Edinburgh; Linda Koschier, the head of entrepreneurship at the University of New South Wales’ Faculty of Engineering; Koenraad Debackere, the executive director of KU Leuven Research & Development; and Paul Cheek, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. The panel will give insights into how you can empower students, how you can foster entrepreneurship on campus even if you live in a risk-averse culture, and how you can give people more time to focus on their business ideas. This episode is a recording of a ⁠TenU⁠ Hosts webinar, chaired by Catherine Headley, the CEO of the University of Manchester Innovation Factory. Further reading Paul Cheek mentions the book, From the Basement to the Dome, which offers an analysis of how MIT’s culture created a thriving entrepreneurial community.

Do you want to hear an exclusive preview clip of the first episode of season two before anyone else? Head on over to thenextleap.is now.