The importance of the technology R&D efforts undertaken by academic institutions is widely recognised within the telecom sector but rarely reported in the industry’s media. So, during the course of the coming months, TelecomTV will analyse the accelerating trend in UK academia to commercialise university research by transforming high-tech innovations from their R&D labs into operations that can be quickly spun out as market-ready companies with high-growth potential.
To start our series of articles, we will look at the UK’s position and prospects in university-led tech research and compare it to similar developments in the US and Europe.
Over centuries, the UK has built a global reputation as a powerful locus of scientific research, discovery, development and innovation. That success is rooted in a nationwide network of distinguished universities with R&D laboratories staffed by internationally renowned academics and teams of researchers drawn from a wide and deep pool of talented undergraduate and post-graduate students, all working in an atmosphere designed to generate intellectual property (IP), foster innovation and encourage the commercial spin-out and success of scalable for-profit companies.
