Alta Innovations Ltd, the 100%-owned technology transfer company for the University of Birmingham, announces it has changed its name to University of Birmingham Enterprise Ltd.
Under the new name, University of Birmingham Enterprise Ltd will carry on the operations of Alta Innovations, including IP, licensing, and the Academic Consultancy Service.
The new name will also be used as the name of the University directorate which provides end to end support for academic innovators, enterprise training and spinout development, and manages the incubation services and facilities at the Birmingham Research Park.
The directorate also manages the University funds that bridge the gap between research funding and commercial investment, and provides start-up incubation services that are available to both academics and SMEs in the Birmingham area.
University of Birmingham Enterprise has shown consistent high performance in identifying and commercialising intellectual property. In the 2016-7 year the company filed 70 patents, and signed 20 commercial licenses.
This performance has been matched in spinout development. The University now has 36 spinout companies, which attracted £10.2m investment in 2016-7.
Dr James Wilkie, CEO of University of Birmingham Enterprise commented: “In practice the wholly-owned trading company and the departments within the directorate have been working in close collaboration for many years. We have had a great deal of success and felt it was the right time to change the name and make it clear we operate on behalf of an educational charity, the University of Birmingham. Matching the name of the company to the name of the directorate will also ensure we have a consistent profile to external stakeholders including funders and commercial partners.”
www.birmingham.ac.uk/enterprise
Twitter @UoBAccelerate
Submitted on 08/01/2018
