UK innovation goals put commercialisation in the spotlight

Universities will need to be creative in helping ideas become enterprises, says Anne Lane

The government’s Innovation Strategy, published in July, sets out its ambitions for the UK to “lead the future by creating it”. This involves generating the technology giants of the future and helping everyday businesses to become more innovative.

Many of the candidates for such companies will emerge from the UK’s world-leading research-intensive universities and their networks. That puts university commercialisation and technology transfer—which lie at the nexus of research and fundamental discovery with real-world opportunity—at the front line of the strategy’s delivery.