Source · Select Committees · Science, Innovation and Technology Committee
Recommendation 19
19
Acknowledged
The Government should consider making funding to build the capacity of technology transfer offices contingent...
Recommendation
The Government should consider making funding to build the capacity of technology transfer offices contingent on their ability to deliver significant volume of throughput and provide evidence of success in building capacity and developing skills in their local economies. (Recommendation,Paragraph 58)
Government response summary AI-generated
The government agrees with the overall intent of the recommendation and highlights initiatives to improve access to finance for deep tech companies and strengthen specialist investor capability through the British Business Bank and venture capital fellowships, but does not commit to making funding for technology transfer offices contingent on their performance metrics.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government · verbatim extract
Acknowledged
The government partially agrees with this recommendation. Research England already funds knowledge-exchange capacity through the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), which enables universities to develop their commercialisation capability and support local economic activity. We agree on the Committee’s focus on success and HEIF provides flexible investment in institutional capabilities, including Technology Transfer Office (TTO) capacity, through a competitive, performance-driven allocation mechanism. A current review of HEIF will increase focus on delivering economic growth priority, including increasing incentives for university contributions to local economic growth. This aligns with our belief that effective technology transfer offices can and should play an important role in supporting commercialisation. We agree with the Committee that throughput is crucial and Research England has piloted shared technology-transfer approaches through programmes such as the Research England Development Fund and the Connecting Capability Fund, enabling institutions to collaborate and build capacity and volume of throughput. Research England will publish the independent evaluation of the six-month shared TTO pilot too. Research England invested over £4.7 million into 13 different shared TTO pilots in response to recommendation 4 of the independent review of university spin-outs. The evaluation highlights strong sector enthusiasm for shared services, with most projects meeting or exceeding their KPIs. The pilot demonstrated effective knowledge sharing and collaboration, including pooled training, access to legal advice and development of templates that the Committee rightfully identified as important indicators for the capacity of technology transfer offices.
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