| The university's approach to the commercial application of research discoveries is designed to be open and non-bureaucratic. In February 1987, the General Board gave notice that the commercialization of inventions should provide a significant incentive to the individual inventor , as well as a financial benefit to the university and the corresponding university department. They therefore proposed that income received from commercial exploitation in the form of royalties, license fees, or other revenues , should be divided as follows , according to Table 11-2. Table 11-2. Suggested Division of Income from Commercial Exploitation | Net income | Inventor | Department | University | | First & pound ; 10,000 | 90% | 5% | 5% | | Next 20,000 | 70% | 15% | 15% | | Next 20,000 | 50% | 25% | 25% | | Excess over 50,000 | 33.3% | 33.3% | 33.3% | | Source: "Commercial Exploitation of Inventions funded by Research Councils: Notice by the General Board, Cambridge University Reporter, March 18, 1987, www.challengefund.cam.ac.uk/docs/reporter.doc. | When entering into collaborative research programs with industry, companies are given access to the wide variety of skills and expertise available within the university and are assured of their right to use any intellectual property arising from their sponsored research for commercialization. Although the eventual publication of all research results is the norm, the university respects proprietary information and helps individuals and companies to protect new discoveries. The university's Corporate Liaison Office is an important tool supporting the transfer of technology as a portal to promote contacts between the university and industry, and to help academics find ways of commercially exploiting their research results. Leadership from the university's vice chancellor, Professor Sir Alec Broers, has furthermore played a central role in enabling commercial applications of intellectual capital. Lindy Beveridge underlines his importance next. Lindy Beveridge The importance of leadership and the role of Sir Alec Broers at the university In Cambridge, Sir Alec Broers is ubiquitous ” he knows everyone by his or her first name and he turns up everywhere all the time. It is important to him to be involved with the business community, a behavior that is absolutely unprecedented in the history of Cambridge vice chancellors. Face-to-face meetings between the university and individuals from the business community occur considerably more frequently since Alec Broers became vice chancellor. Leading as a role model, he demonstrates the importance of such meetings by attending them himself all the time. As a result of his personal background, Broers is able to communicate well within both the academic and the business environments, which is considered to be a key factor of his success. The university seems to be learning that Broers is unwilling to sit through baroque rituals of the past, wanting rather to deal with things in a much more direct style, adopting the perspective of business managers whenever it is needed. What Broers personally demonstrates is a phenomenon that is increasingly proliferating throughout Cambridge ” the meeting of different cultures. After his first five years in office, he is considered to have substantially altered the face of the city. He has shown leadership for example in tackling the planning issues around Cambridge, that were considered to be getting worse and worse , willing to tangle with local and central government, wafting in and out of the Cabinet Office. The president of Magdalene in Oxford complained to me that Cambridge was getting a lot more media and government attention than Oxford. I replied that this was all due to Alec Broers. If he wants to go and talk to members of the Cabinet, he does! He has a direct and interactive style with everyone within the government, business, and the university; which has been a real breath of fresh air. | |
