Intellectual Property (IP) and spin out support

HEI (Higher Education Institution) based researchers will have the support of their own university Technology Transfer offices to identify and broker deals that will exploit work through spinouts and licence agreements.

STFC funded researchers at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire, the Daresbury Laboratory (DL) in Cheshire and the Astronomy Technology Centre (ATC) in Edinburgh and Chilbolton can receive the same support from the Innovations Directorate’s STFC Innovations Ltd, the Technology Transfer office of the STFC.

STFC Innovations Ltd’s role is to support STFC in identifying and brokering deals to exploit STFC IP through spinouts and license agreements, and manage all aspects of STFC’s IP rights. STFC Innovations Ltd also has a Business Support team who manage access to facilities & expertise and organising direct sales.

STFC Innovations Ltd currently has a portfolio of 59 patent families of which half of these are already licensed. The majority of these have potential for licensing, either for royalties for a spin-out company. Around 50% of STFC Innovations Ltd's patents involve detector technology, with royalties mainly from scientific software and microelectronics chip designs.

For more information, go to the STFC Innovations Limited (link opens in a new window) site.

STFC Intellectual Property Rights: policy & guide (PDF - link opens in a new window).

Examples of current successful spin-outs from STFC funded research.