Trinity Top in Delivering Innovation from Research

Posted on: 25 November 2015

Trinity College Dublin is top of the pile in driving innovation via knowledge transfer from research to business, with its actions resulting in great benefit for our economy and society.

Trinity’s Research & Innovation team won both Knowledge Transfer Ireland (KTI) Impact Awards at a special ceremony considering ‘Licensing Intellectual Property – Strategies and Pitfalls’; the KTI awards recognise successful commercialisation of Irish State-funded research that translates knowledge and expertise for businesses and investors.

The awards also acknowledge and celebrate the work carried out in Technology Transfer and Industry Liaison Offices at State-funded research performing organisations (RPOs), and the professionals involved.

Trinity won ‘Knowledge Transfer Initiative of the Year’ for the most innovative and creative initiative in knowledge transfer that was implemented by the Technology Transfer/Industry Liaison Office at a State-funded RPO within the last year. Trinity’s ‘Optimisation of IP Management and Commercialisation’ project, led by Emily Vereker, secured the award.

Trinity then shared the Knowledge Transfer Achiever of the Year award, which recognises an individual at a Technology Transfer/Industry Liaison Office in an Irish State-funded RPO who has gone the extra mile to deliver on a case, project or business area within the last year. Dr Graham McMullin, from Trinity Research & Innovation, shared the award with Dr Emma O’Neill from Invent DCU.

In the past year Dr McMullin has delivered on a complex commercialisation of platform intellectual property. The IP was developed before and during a collaborative project and although this project was 100% industry-funded, the company was persuaded to let the IP ownership remain with the university preferred rights so that exploitation was confined to a narrow field of use.

The outcomes to date comprise four licences, which include elements such as significant upfront fees and a defined pathway to high-value royalty revenues, coupled with further collaborative contracts and the option to license the IP to new partners, and to utilise it to underpin further industry-funded research.

This was an extremely challenging strategy to implement to enable all companies involved to obtain the required freedom of operation, while allowing them to have a commercial advantage on terms that were attractive to the university.

Dr McMullin managed all aspects from the IP structure of the research contract to the patent protection, the IP commercialisation, and the full circle of new research contract engagement and funding.