Mainland Europe is often said to be a problem child when it comes to technology transfer, especially compared to with the UK’s successes. Now, with ETH transfer being named the «Tech Transfer Unit of the Year» by Global University Venturing – and thus prevailing against Oxford University and MIT – that myth is debunked.
The technology transfer office, ETH transfer, supports young entrepreneurs in the early stage of founding their own companies and supports the ETH community in all questions relating to research contracts with industry, inventions, patent applications and licensing. ETH transfer has been under the leadership of Silvio Bonaccio since 2001.
Now, Global University Venturing, a bimonthly magazine and website reporting on university spin-offs, has named ETH transfer the «Tech Transfer Unit of the Year». Other nominees were the technology transfer units of other elite universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Oxford.
Global University Venturing base their decision on the high number of ETH spin-offs and the investments they received. Since the first founding of an ETH spin-off in 1973, the elite university has birthed a total of 432 spin-offs. Last year the ETH spin-offs managed to raise funds of $173 million overall, which is an up of $50 million from 2017. Airbus, Sony, Fontinalis Partners and Zürcher Kantonalbank were among the investors.
The chances are good that ETH Zurich will stay on top. Today the university announced that it will adopt a new leadership structure: the number of Executive Board domains is being expanded from five to seven. One of the new vice presidents will concentrate on the area of knowledge transfer and corporate relations. The new composition of the Executive Board should be in place by spring 2020.
(SOK)
(Picture: ETH Zürich/ Emmanuel Ammon)
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