Business links bring £10.3 billion to universities

A British government investment of £600 million to encourage universities to partner with business has generated up to £4.2 billion, according to an analysis of public spending on knowledge transfer, Times Higher Education reports.

A report commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) said that universities generated £10.3 billion through the exchange of knowledge with businesses between 2001 and 2007.

Between £2.9 billion and £4.2 billion of that could be directly attributed to Hefce funding, the report said.

NZ university technology companies get backing from investors

Meanwhile, a technology company spun out of Auckland University's engineering school has won backing from the investment group behind auction website Trade Me, the New Zealand Herald reported recently.

PowerbyProxi was set up in August 2007 to commercialise a wireless power technology invented by university scientists.

Now it has attracted the attention of Movac, a group that mentors and invests in start-up businesses.

In other news, Hamilton business incubator WaikatoLink, the commercial arm of the University of Waikato has become a founding member of Icube -- an international incubation initiative.

Icube has the backing of the commercial arm of the Singapore Government's Agency for Science, Technology and Research.

The deal, signed in Singapore this month, gives participating incubators access to business partners, customers and investors across Southeast Asia.

Resources

To read 'Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Role of Hefce/OSI Third-Stream Funding: Culture Change and Embedding in the Higher Education Sector Toward Greater Economic Impact', go to the Hefce web site.

To read the Times Higher Education story, visit this web page.

To read more about PowerbyProxi, go to this web page.

Further information about the WaikatoLink initiative is at this web page.