Manchester-Salford Commercialisation Consortium: Building a Regional TTO Community

CCF-RED: Shared Technology Transfer Office Pilot Scheme

Greater Manchester is home to a rich and diverse network of universities, which offer complementary strengths and provision across the full spectrum of Knowledge Exchange (KE) activities. This proposal sets out a project which will build on the strong partnerships which exist between the HEIs of Manchester and Salford, with a focus on enabling the partner universities to grow, develop and succeed in the commercialisation and enterprise activities supported by their respective Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs). The University of Manchester has a large, well-established TTO, operating at scale, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, The University of Manchester Innovation Factory (UoMIF), which offers a comprehensive range of support for IP commercialisation from early disclosure through to spin out/licence. Partner institutions within the region of Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and The University of Salford (UoS), are all active in supporting KE, with dedicated resources and expertise established to support these activities and are all positioned to nurture IP commercialisation through supporting new spin-outs and licencing of IP. UoMIF is extremely well placed to offer support to the smaller TTOs to enable them to (i) grow academic engagement in commercialisation and disclosure numbers; (ii) support development of a commercialisation pipeline and (iii) secure investment. A precursor to this project was established between UoMIF and UoS in 2021 when a service agreement was set up between the two TTOs, to enable UoMIF to offer critical support and advice to UoS as it developed new spin out opportunities, the aim of this project is to expand that model to include other regional TTOs and explore new areas of support.

This project sets out a series of work packages, designed to enable the partner TTOs to collaborate, share best practice and support each other, with an overall objective to increase commercialisation across Manchester and Salford, which feeds into our regional innovation ecosystem, and contributes to the economic growth and prosperity of our region. Our overall objective is to establish a long-term, formal, sustainable model for UoMIF to offer TTO support across consortium at the end of the 6-month project.