Dr. Alison Campbell - KTI

2013 saw a marked increase in the level of engagement between companies and all Irish publicly-funded research performing organisations (RPOs), including universities and the institutes of technology, according to Knowledge Transfer Ireland.

The first KTI annual report just published shows a 15% increase in the number of external clients that engaged with research performing organisations in 2013, resulting in 1,598 engagement agreements, up 9% on the previous year.

The report shows that 37 new spin-out companies were created based on intellectual property and knowledge from Irish research performing organisations. Over the same period the number of IP-based transactions between RPOs and industry, including licences, options and assignments, increased by 48% to 139 last year. The report takes in a wide and deep data set, with information returned from all of Ireland’s RPOs.

KTI was launched in May 2014 and is operated in partnership between Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Universities Association. Its annual report charts its first period of development (September 2013 to May 2014) including the delivery of a unique resource for industry the KTI web portal (www.knowledgetransferireland.com). This web portal provides companies with easy access to the resources available to them from State-funded research – from expertise to technologies, from intellectual property to facilities and equipment.

According to KTI Director Dr. Alison Campbell, “the information available strongly supports the view that Government investment designed to strengthen Ireland's relatively young technology transfer capability is working and is continuing to meet its objectives”.

Dr. Campbell said that in its first nine months KTI had put in place most of the building blocks essential to this task. "Our immediate objectives now include further development of the KTI web portal's content and functionality to ensure that companies are aware of the valuable resources and intellectual property emerging from Irish RPOs which can contribute to their growth plans."

"We have an extremely busy time ahead, but it is also an exciting one. We will continue to work closely with our Industry Advisory Board and the Knowledge Transfer Stakeholder Forum, two important bodies which help us set our direction and review our activities on an ongoing basis," Dr. Campbell said.

Download the from the KTI website:
www.knowledgetransferireland.com/kti-reports