Gold Innovations Blog

Michael Kenward at ScienceBusiness highlights some interesting recent comments from Tom Hockaday, the Managing Director of Isis Innovation Ltd, the wholly owned technology transfer subsidiary of Oxford University. Isis is one of the UK’s best university technology transfer offices, with multiple commercially successful spin-out companies and numerous technologies brought to market.

I’ll leave you to read the detail of the two articles but one of the main thrusts is that it is pointless to bully researchers who simply don’t want to be involved in technology transfer. In other words, not all academics with interesting science want to commercialise technology. From our perspective at World Gold Council this really rings true. An interesting scientific paper that identifies a possible new use of gold may, or may not, be worthy of our efforts to pursue further feasibility studies. It largely depends on the researcher involved and whether they are really serious about trying to bring a new (gold-based) technology to commercial markets or whether they are really just looking for the next funds to deliver a new paper for a leading research journal.

Why do I mention this? Well, our GROW Programme is very much about forming partnerships to facilitate and accelerate commercialisation. World Gold Council recognises that new gold science is the foundation upon which new technologies will eventually emerge (it’s why we publish Gold Bulletin for example), but our role is not to fund basic (gold) research. Our role is to help support and accelerate the rate at which gold technologies eventually reach the market.

Those interested in the GROW Programme should consider this when making an application to us……