NUI Galway has finalised a new technology commercialisation agreement with the Irish firm Technology from Ideas (TfI). Under the agreement the company will collaborate with the faculty’s technology transfer office to source technology ideas from campus-based researchers for development and sale to industry.
According to NUI Galway, the agreement is the first of a series which will be announced over the coming months. Each one of these will be for a particular area of research. The agreement announced this morning forms part of an ongoing strategic initiative for NUI Galway’s technology transfer office in the development, commercial exploitation, industrial partnering and spin-out of technologies under development by several different research teams at the university. The office at NUI Galway is said to be the longest established facility of its kind in Ireland.
Under the terms of the agreement, TfI will have automatic access to certain categories of unrealised technologies and technology ideas in the broad areas of engineering and physical sciences.
TfI will faciliate NUI Galway in transferring these technology research ideas from concept to the laboratory and thereafter to the market. It will also work on the commercial exploitation of certain technologies with established intellectual property.
Dr Daniel O’Mahony, director of the technology transfer office at NUI Galway, said that collaboration between universities and industry was crucial in taking leading-edge research and ideas through to fruition. “At NUI Galway we have some of the world’s leading scientists across different research areas. Thanks to their continued research efforts and innovation we have a wealth of intellectual property at NUI Galway and its commercialisation will continue to benefit Ireland’s burgeoning ‘knowledge economy’,” he commented. “In addition, we recognise the importance of transfer of technologies to the market place in as quick a timeframe as possible and in rewarding inventors of such technologies.”
Dan Richardson, managing director of TfI, said that NUI Galway was an innovator in technology transfer. “We want to quickly establish ourselves as a valuable partner for the university and hope that this will be the start of a long-term relationship.”
By Gordon Smith
