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Minutes of the study visit in Oxfordshire

Participants and agendaIn the framework of the project “FARE RETE IN EUROPA”, NETVALUE, one of the beneficiary networks of the exchange programme granted by the action, organised a study visit in Oxfordshire (07/04/2011 – 08/04/2011), whose main objective has been to provide representatives of Umbria region with direct knowledge of the main initiative in place to support Academia-Industry cooperation networks and the economic exploitation of research result more in general.

Participants:o Anna Ascani, AUR Director

o Mauro Casavecchia, AUR

o Stefano Fanini, AUR

o Lorenzo Lo Cascio, META Group

o Andrea Cardoni, University of Perugia, NETVALUE

The agenda of the study visit included the following meetings:

April the 7th, 2011

11.00-13.30: Visit to Heyford Technology Park and presentation by Dr. Placi Espejo, Network Manager of the Business Innovation and Growth Team at SEEDA (South East England Development Agency - SEEDA), on the strategies of public support to regional economic development.

14-30-16.00: Meeting at the Oxfordshire County Council for an exchange of views with Mr. Dave Waller (Manager of the Office for Economy, Spatial Planning & Climate Change) on the Oxfordshire and Umbria regional economic profiles and the main development and networking support strategies.

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17.00-19.30: Attendance to an “Isis Angels Network Investment Presentation” meeting, organised by ISIS Innovation, where spin-out companies from Oxford University are presenting themselves to investors.

20.30-22.00: Networking dinner with Dr Andrea Alunni, Seed Investment Manager at ISIS Innovation on the model adopted by ISIS to commercialise the research results of the Oxford University.

April the 8th, 2011

9.30-11.30: Meeting with Dr. Dorothea Ringe (Programme Manager at the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation) for an introduction to the SAID Business School and a presentation of the activities to support innovation and entrepreneurship run by OxCEI.

12.00-12.45: Meeting with Mr Joe Barclay, Direcotr of the Regional Liaison Office at the Oxford University, for a presentation of Oxford University and the management model for the relationships with the regional financial, business, institutional actors.

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Main findings

In the following, a brief summary of the content exchanged during the meetings is provided.

1) SOUTH EAST BUSINESS INNOVATION & GROWTH (S-E B&IG).

The organisation - S-E B&IG. Placi Espejo is the network manager of S-E B&IG. She has an extensive track record in the provision of incubation and support services to high-groth potential start-up companies.

S-E B&IG is basically focusing on the pre-seed phase activities and consists of 8 people, each one covering one of the 8 areas which Oxfordshire is divided in. Oxfordshire is at the core of South East England, the wealthiest regions in the UK, which is greatly benefiting from the proximity to London’s financial ventures.

They accept to support only high growth companies or innovative companies (the esprit de finesse leading them in selecting beneficiaries). They are entitled to work with companies in all of the 4 steps (even though they are not actually working with Elephants):

o Bambis

o Gazelles

o Tigers

o Elephants

S-E B&IG’s performance is evaluated against MIO£ of funds raised for companies and the measured differentials in GVA.

Although S-E B&IG is 100% funded by the South-East England Development Agency, they are not part of SEEDA. As the UK national government decided to close all RDAs in the country by the end of 2011, they will be facing a severe challenge to find the necessary source of funding to continue operations.

Actually, the Tory government plans to substitute the services rendered available to companies by RDAs with the Local Entrepreneurship Partnerships, basically groups of mentors providing advice on voluntary basis.

Only few intermediary organisations will survive in very specific sectors.

Ms Placi Espejo described us:

The regional support to networking

There are a lot of initiatives in place in the county (both private- and public-led) in support of networking and cooperation among the regional players.

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The main aim of such initiatives is to address and alleviate the general reluctance of regional entrepreneurs to cooperate among themselves. This is mainly a cultural barrier to overcome and networking initiatives are mainly focused in providing opportunities to exchange information, improve the quality of relationships and build mutual trust among members rather than promoting the development of such networks at the international level.

The vast majority of such networking initiatives are public-funded and inclusive. Approximately ten of them, such as the Biotech network, the Investment network, the Institute of Directors, etc, are commercially-run and not inclusive.

The South-East England Development AgencySEEDA’s main target is to “Create strong regional and sub-regional partnerships”. Activities in support of regional development are mainly focusing on setting the most favourable conditions for the different regional players to cooperate.

In the frame of the new organisation of the support to economic development in the UK, which foresee the dismissal of the regional level and in particular of the Regional Development Agencies, only selected lines of operations (those ones for which public funding will be ensured). Among these, the “8 growth diamonds” initiative will represent one of the pillars of the Oxfordshire development strategy. 8 sub-regional areas have been identified (most of them with a strong focus on the manufacturing industry) which will be supported through funding coming from the national level.

UK / Oxfordshire current and future innovation support system- Business link. It has been one of the pillars of the support to businesses in the

UK. It was launched decades ago by the Mrs Thatcher’s government. It is an experience similar to what in Italy has been done later on with Sviluppo Italia. Business link has been providing businesses with strategic contacts and information for them to grow. It is going to die in November. From hundreds of employees, only one website will remain providing basic orientation services.

- S-E BI&G. (See above).

- Sector consortia. These are operating very similarly to S-E BI&G, but they work in specific sectors only (video-games, etc). Sector consortia also are strongly affected by the dismissal of the regional level in supporting businesses and, apart from those ones operating in the manufacturing and design sectors (recognised as key sectors by the national level) will be therefore abandoned next autumn.

- Technology strategy board. It is the National Innovation Agency. It will survive and will be the only board promoting innovation in the country (although mainly following a distributing approach).

- Finance South East. It is the regional Financing Agency They started 7 years ago, managing mezzanine loans (highest rates than market price, but no

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guarantees). It was funded by commercial groups (mainly acting in the Construction sector) and co-capitalised by SEEDA. Likely to disappear in the future.

- Local Entrepreneurship Partnerships. It is the main initiative launched by the National government to supply support services to businesses at the local level (i.e. to replace the support provided by the dismissed regional level). The organisation of the Local Entrepreneurship Partnerships is still at an embryonic level in the UK. Nonetheless, some of their characteristics seem to have been already defined:

It will be a body gathering people from business sector, academia and the wider public sector willing to be engaged on a voluntary basis to provide mentoring services to emerging companies.

It will have the mandate to act as a catalyst for realising Oxfordshire’s economic and commercial potential

It will be an independent advocate for the drivers of innovation and growth

More information on the LEPs can be found at www.oxfordshirelep.org

- Local key programmes: The main objectives of the economic development and innovation support policy programmes in Oxfordshire have been focusing on the physical capital (hard and soft infrastructures), human capital (skills), and relational capital (fostering businesses’ access to support, mainly for networking). All programmes have as a final objective to improve the appeal of Oxfordshire to business activities and increase inward investments. Main programmes include:

Fast broadband access

Improving skills (employability)

Increasing inward investment

Providing the link to business support

Enabling infrastructure for growth and reducing barriers

- National level programmes - Solutions for Business products

The main national support programmes which are available to local companies are:

Support to Collaborative R&D

Grants for R&D

Work place training, including apprenticeships

Finance for Business

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Understanding finance for business

Rural development programme for England (business support, development of rural areas)

High growth coaching

Helping your business grow internationally

Manufacturing advisory service. Likely to survive, but will be re-organised at the national level.

Designing demand

Knowledge transfer partnerships (Sectoral approach)

Networking for innovation (still need for a push to favour relationships).

2) MEETING AT THE OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL – Mr DAVE WALLER

Being Oxfordshire one of the wealthiest regions in the UK, the County Council has not looked at economic development (and consequently at ERDF/ESF money) as a priority. Under the push of the crisis and of the increasing Chinese competition, things are changing a bit.

Geographical localisation is reported to be as one of the main economic assets of the region, which is near the Heathrow hub, near the big metropolitan area of London (global city) and is definitively a nice place where to live.

It has been confirmed by Mr Waller that fostering cooperation among regional players has been a policy priority since a long time. Now, they are also changing the way they approach the issue of supporting networks. Competitiveness of networks and their outreach capabilities have risen as crucial issues in support policy.

Also the Oxfordshire County Council is concerned about the dismissal of the Regional Development Agencies and is not entirely clear with the way the forthcoming LEPs should be built. Nonetheless the removal of an “artificial” regional boundary (Oxfordshire is included in the South-East of England, together with Kent, which they do not feel relatedto) is also seen as an opportunity to better shape the focus of policies on a “region” which is not identified through administrative borders.

LEPs will be bigger than a county and business-led. For sure, not all sectors will have a LEP. There will be the need to select target sectors for support and to be selective.

As far as the economic exploitation of knowledge, Oxfordshire in on the leading edge in the EU. Oxford exports knowledge.

Differently from the vast majority of EU regions, the main issue in knowledge exploitation is not the money to start-up companies. Oxfordshire is good at producing and supporting knowledge-based start-ups, they have the problem to protect the gazelles from being purchased by players outside of the region.

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The main performance indicator against which the performance of the Office for Economy, Spatial Planning & Climate Change at Oxfordshire County Council will be measured is the number of high value jobs created (workers with skills appealing to the whole world, irrespectively to the sector).

3) ISIS - Angels Network Investment Presentation meeting

The third meeting in the agenda provided the participants with the opportunity to attend an “Isis Angels Network Investment Presentation” meeting, organised by ISIS Innovation, where spin-out companies from Oxford University have been presenting themselves to investors.

Companies’ presentations have been preceded by the speech of Mr Eric Wang from GVTFund (VC), who provided companies insights how venture capitalists look at business and investment op opportunities.

The four companies presented have been:

Intelligent Ultrasound (Mr Andy Hill). Intelligent Ultrasound is a University spin-out that develops software for medical imaging applications, primarily in the field of obstetric ultrasound. The core technology increases the information content and diagnostic power of ultrasound scans and promises to make ultrasound easier to use and more accessible to clinicians and their patients.

COLWIZ – Collective Wizard (Mr David Vaghavan). Colwiz (collective wizdom) is a new start-up company that has been set up by researchers and academics from the University of Oxford to address the growing challenges of individual and collaborative research management across academia, industry and enterprise. It supports the concept of “end-to-end research management” using desktop applications for Windows, Linux and Mac, together with an online version in the cloud.

Oxford Deontics (Mr Guy Wood-Gush). Oxford Deontics is a proposed spinout from the University of Oxford which is aimed at supplying a range of software products and services to assist clinical decision making. The Oxford Deontics technology supports deployment of diagnostic, therapeutic, prognostic and other evidence based applications, within an advanced workflow management and web-based service coordination framework

Immunogens (Mr Simon Bennett). Oxford Immunogens, a proposed spinout company from the University of Oxford will initially sell a portfolio of approximately 20 different types of proteins to be used in biomedical research. The specific proteins in the current portfolio are immunogens used in HIV/AIDS vaccine research. This current product portfolio has generated over £160,000 of sales to date.

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A networking dinner with Mr Andrea Alunni, ISIS Innovation Seed Investment Manager, has been the opportunity to gather direct knowledge n the model of commercialisation of the research made in Oxford University. The model is patent/license-based and applies also to spin-out companies, which are licensee (and not owner) of the Intellectual Property (which belongs always to Oxford University.

4) OxCEI - Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation – Mrs Dorothea Ringe

OxCEI is providing business skills to researchers. They are running course in the evening. Their business and entrepreneurship courses are not included in the curricular activities of students of other faculties. They are providing extra courses to students.

OxCEI provides a common place for MBAs and researchers to meet and hopefully cooperate. Every year there are 350 places in the courses. Enquiries are more than availability (approximately 500 a year). 50 places in the courses are reserved to people from outside the University (not only SAID Business School).

The staff is composed by:

Centre:1 Director;

2 programme managers

1 Administrative

1 Assistant

Staff of the faculty involved1 Professor

1 Fellow

2 Lecturers

1 research fellow

2 Doctoral Students

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They are totally public-funded.

They can be seen as preparing the ground for ISIS.

Activities can range from teaching, to venture creation to networking:

TEACHINGo MBA Courses

o Entrepreneurship project (EP) - In the year of courses students have to build a business plan that will be reviewed and assessed at the end of the course

o EP workshops

o Electives

Extra-curricular courses o building a business (9 1h lecture + 1h drink, OxCEI pays 220£ per speaker + drinks)

o medical innovation

o science innovation plus

o entrepreneurship Bootcamp

VENTURE CREATIONo SBS Venture fund (1M£, from donation) – students playing the role of fund

managers. Finally a couple of investments per year

o Venture Capital Investment Competition – playing again the role of investors, they make the investment dossier, negotiate the deals and then investors in the room possibly jump on their work (but not directly closing deals)

o Mentoring Young Entrepreneurship (17-19 ys, more on the entrepreneurial culture)

Oxford Business X (OBX)

Youth Business Development

o ISIS fellowship

NETWORKS & OUTREACH

o Silicon Valley comes to Oxford

o Technology Roundtables – Knowledge Circle (informal meeting) oncommercialisation of technology

o Venturefest – big event – everybody related to entrepreneurship (the so-called eco-system) gathers a make the showcase of his own activities.

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o Oxford at SAID - classical outreach activities, discussing big challenges, like ageing, oceans, etc where the big markets will be in the future.

o Oxford Entrepreneurs – largest European student entrepreneurship society (4500 members)

o Alumni Entrepreneurs – establishing a community of interest on the activities of the Centre (they have recorded 175 alumni entrepreneurs)

Key findings:

They are not turning researchers into entrepreneurs. They make research and entrepreneurs go together and possibly establish a new company.

Would-be entrepreneurs are trained to become investment ready by playing the role of investors in a business game organised once a year.

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5) Regional Liason Office of the Oxford University – Mr Joe Barclay (director)

Finally, Mr Joe BARCLAY, head of the University of Oxford, Regional Liaison Office, provided the participants with an extensive presentation (facts & figures)

4 domains:

Medical Science

Life sciences

Humanities

Social sciences

Plus horizontal depts.: Science park; Research services, ISIS and OxCEI

Students are intensively followed by Staff (1 staff every 4 students approximately)

In 2009-2010, the following incomes have been registered:

Revenues 879,8M£HEFCE (public funding) 203M£/879,8M£

Fees 137,3M£

Research grants and contracts 367M£ (mostly public research)

Other 147,5M£

Endowment/Investment income 25M£

University Press 611M£Colleges (legally separate from University) 289,9M£

So we can sum up that “future for university is not coming from technology transfer.

Due to public budget restraints, there has been a triplication of University fees for students. There’s a financial scheme by which students are provided with a loan at very preferential terms. Payback starts if and when their salary reaches a certain threshold.

Oxford University is the second larger employer in Oxfordshire:

10K staff (BMW 4K), plus additional 4100 indirectly created by spin-out companies of the University.

The Innovation structure (third stream of action in Oxford University, first two being education and research) consists of the following players (grouped by typology of activity):

- Awareness raising

o Said Business School

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o Oxford Entrepreneurs

o Venturefest

- Education and Trainingo Said Business School

OxCEI

MBA, Executive MBA

Executive education

o Continuing Professional Development (LLL)

- Wealth creationo ISIS

Consultancy

Licensing

Spin-outs

o Applied Research

o Begbroke SP and Innovation & enterprise Center

o Oxford Science Park

o University Press

- Supporting bodieso Consultancy

o ISIS Angel Network

o Oxford Innovation Society

o Regional Liaison Office

o Venture Fest

The innovation structure is financed by the higher education innovation fund of around 150 M£/y in UK. Oxford takes 2,85M£/y (the maximum allowed), allocated to pay the services of the innovation structure.

In evaluating applications for research grants, estimated impact on the Region will have a 20% weight.

Overall research expenditure in Oxford ranks 9th in UK, after 8 elephants.

The charity “Welcome trust” is financing a lot of Oxford’s medical research (overall 112M£).

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ISIS Innovation. ISIS’ mission is helping researcher who want to commercialise their research.

ISIS Innovation is the 5th bigger patent applicant.

Main ISIS’ ActivitiesPatenting

Licensing

Formation of new companies

Managing Seed Funds & Angels Network

Consulting and Ser vice contract – Oxford University Consulting

TT Consulting – ISIS Enterprise

Oxford Innovation Society