Drive to promote Oxford as major high-tech centre

Sir Robert Malpas, former Chairman of the Cookson Group and of the Natural Environment Research Council, and Lord Sainsbury, Minister for Science, are supporting a drive by Oxford to spread the word about the University's current successes in building collaborative partnerships with business and industry. The drive is being organised in partnership with the new South East England Development Agency. An event will be held in London next month, which will look at the new ways developed by Oxford to transfer new technology and research ideas from the University to the commercial world, via new `spin-off' companies. The Vice-Chancellor will deliver a keynote address, and other speakers on 4 November include Professor Brian Cantor, Head of Department and Cookson Professor of Materials; Professor Lionel Tarassenko, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Dr Edwin Moses, Managing Director of Oxford Asymmetry; and Dr Paul Drayson, Chairman and Chief Executive of PowderJect Pharmaceuticals. The event will be chaired by Professor Susan Greenfield, Director of the Royal Institution. Oxford is currently filing, on average, one new patent a week, and these are `sifted' so that only those with some ultimately viable commercial and practical benefit are pursued. Currently, Isis Innovation, set up ten years ago to commercialise the University's research, is managing more than 275 technology transfer projects—more than fifty of which have been licensed, and some thirty which are under negotiation. Looking ahead, many more new `spin-offs' are on the way. In the last eighteen months alone, eight new major companies have been signed off in which the University retains an equity value in terms of shares of nearly £5 million. Sir Martin Wood, founder of Oxford Instruments and Chairman of the Oxford Economic Partnership, and another speaker at the event, said: `This is just the kind of event needed to help spread the word about our enormous range of high-tech and technology transfer successes, and to encourage new businesses to join us on our future ventures.'