Cambridge University - A Long Tradition of Knowledge and Innovation

Cambridge University ” A Long Tradition of Knowledge and Innovation

Many in Cambridge University view its role as the place that produces ideas that change the world. The tradition of innovation and criticism, in the true sense of the word, has created an environment that has produced 76 Nobel Prizes, conveying to its pool of talented graduates the confidence required to try to make their ideas work and carry them out to the world. In sum, Cambridge University is fundamental in leveraging the intellectual capital in the region.

There are two fundamental motors that have driven the process of developing formal links and interchange between pure scientific research and market applications at Cambridge University. The first is the vice chancellor of the university, Professor Sir Alec Broers, who is considered to be a visionary in terms of how the university can play a role in enabling the growth of the region by linking with business throughout greater Cambridge. Sir Alec Broers believes that Cambridge has the capacity to become the center of Great Britain's competitive advantage in world markets. ^[5] He has taken an unprecedented role in linking the university with business by incorporating the marriage of the two cultures of science and of management in order to succeed at transferring technology to the commercial arena. His interactive style and strong leadership have altered the face of Cambridge and continue to be a key factor in the redefinition of the relationship between the university and the commercial sector, which has traditionally been restricted by a superiority complex described as "town and gown."

The second motor is the University of Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre, ^[6] directed by Peter Hiscocks. The center's mission is to leverage what Hiscocks describes as "the still hugely underexploited potential of the university." With the slogan "Building Tomorrow's Business," the center's work echoes Sir Alec Broers' agenda of building an entrepreneurial culture within the university by training, developing, and supporting the people who will make new knowledge-based ventures successful. The center, founded in late 1999, hopes to act as an implementation tool for a process it calls "knowledge-based entrepreneurship," and so to exploit the university's most abundant resource. Supporting the center's mission is the liberal policy the university has toward intellectual property, allowing graduates to own the full rights of any innovation they develop.