New project aims to create more research-based companies and aid technology transfer in Danish universities
- Enhance the universities’ capacity and competences in the area of technology transfer.
- Help more researchers become entrepreneurs.
- Build up a strong and well-functioning entrepreneurial community.
Denmark has a great deal of untapped potential when it comes to creating businesses based on research. A new collaborative project between Danish universities is intended to help realise this potential. The Spin-outs Denmark project aims to increase the number and quality of research- and technology-based companies and support the development of a national ecosystem of academic entrepreneurs.
The University of Southern Denmark (SDU) will manage the project in close cooperation with the other seven universities in Denmark:
“We’ve worked for a long time to make this collaboration across all the Danish universities a reality. It’s an important and promising project for Denmark, Danish researchers and universities. So we’re very grateful for the generous grant that makes it possible. I’m convinced that this will not only enhance cooperation between universities, but will also benefit the whole of society when it comes to entrepreneurship, job creation, innovation and commercialisation of Danish research and knowledge,” says Søren E. Frandsen, head of SDU’s Research and Innovation Organisation (SDU RIO).
In order to ensure the quality and progress of the project, an advisory board will be appointed consisting of experienced international experts, representatives from Vækstfonden, Innovation Fund Denmark, Danish companies and investors.
From basic research to solutionsVILLUM FONDEN has awarded a five-year grant totalling DKK 75 million for the project:
“Our grant to Spin-outs Denmark will boost the ecosystem that makes it possible to apply basic research in practice. We’re pleased to have the opportunity to support the universities’ aims, and hope that the collaboration between the technology transfer offices at the Danish universities will help them create innovative solutions, for example to climate challenges,” says Thomas Bjørnholm, Executive Chief Scientific Officer, who will be on the project’s advisory board as an observer and representative of VILLUM FONDEN.
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