Dr Pat Frain, Director, NovaUCD
NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at UCD, has announced strong commercialisation results for 2008. UCD researchers are generating an invention a week, with 53 invention disclosures reported to NovaUCD during 2008. A total of 184 inventions have now been disclosed to NovaUCD during the five year period to end 2008.
A total of 122 patent applications were filed by UCD in the five years ending last year, 38 of which were filed in 2008. Additionally, 38 licence agreements were concluded by UCD in the past four years with a range of indigenous and international companies.
Announcing NovaUCD’s 2008 results, Dr Pat Frain, Director, NovaUCD said, “NovaUCD’s successes during 2008 and in the 5-years ending last year clearly demonstrate that the growth in public investment in R&D at UCD is yielding a significant return to the Irish economy and society. In recent years NovaUCD-related start-ups have created well over 1000 high-quality job opportunities and the total investment in UCD spin-out companies during the past decade, is now more than $200 million.” He added, “The support received from Enterprise Ireland through the Technology Transfer Strengthening Initiative is having a huge impact on the pipeline of inventions and innovative ideas coming through the NovaUCD system.”
Forty-five high-tech and knowledge-intensive companies, including 15 UCD spin-out companies, have occupied incubation space at NovaUCD and availed of NovaUCD’s related innovation services during 2004-2008. Over 140 new ventures, 11 in 2008 alone, and 210 individuals have now completed the NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme which has run annually since 1996.
Dr Frain concluded, “Looking to the future it is important to recognise that the conversion to licence deals, new companies and much needed employment takes time. However the recently announced UCD/TCD Innovation Alliance will build on the considerable success of NovaUCD and its TCD counterpart in accelerating the innovation process and in maximising the impact of the State’s research investment in enterprise development and job creation.”
