The study tour to the United Kingdom, February 2007

The UK Closed Nuclear Centres Programme (CNCP) organises annual study tours to the UK on themes such as the Commercialisation of Science and Technology and the Creation of Sustainable Businesses. The main aim of the study tours is to enable senior managers and specialists from nuclear research centres directly involved in putting R&D into practice, to learn from the British experience of commercialisation leading to the formation of new businesses.

Between 18-26 February 2007, one such tour took place, attended by 12 representatives of nuclear centres from Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. The itinerary was designed to include several companies which manage large research units, R&D centres in British Universities, and companies engaged in the commercialisation of high-tech inventions. The senior managers of these companies shared their experience, explaining the main challenges and how these were addressed during the process of bringing high technologies to manufacturing. Lively discussions during and after each presentation enabled the participants to raise the issues most relevant to their own activities. The main areas discussed included:

• The management of large research facilities;
• The identification and evaluation of new technologies;
• Intellectual property rights;
• Risk assessment and risk management around the introduction of new technologies;
• The development and management of spin-out companies;
• Shareholders and their benefits in high-tech R&D commercialisation;
• The motivation of scientific personnel involved in commercialisation processes;
• Personnel training and culture change;
• British governmental policy regarding scientific commercialisation.

The Council for Central Laboratories of the Research Councils (CCLRC), which runs the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the Daresbury Laboratory and the Chilbolton Observatory, was one of our delegation's first hosts. The meeting took place at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, where we learnt about CCLRC's business areas, including strategic planning and management of large research facilities, and usage of the laboratory's R&D resources. We also heard a presentation on CLIK, the company set up by CCLRC to manage the laboratory's intellectual property. Using CLIK as an example, we learned how the main obstacles to the commercialisation of science and technology can be overcome. In particular, these include:

• IP identification and protection;
• The determination of the level of readiness of the technology and its market sustainability;
• The selection of methods for the commercial development of the technology;
• The management of the CCLRC's interests in existing companies;
• Rewards for inventors;
• Sales of goods and services.

Meetings were also set up with technology transfer companies at major British universities: Isis Innovation Ltd at the University of Oxford; BRDL Ltd at the University of Birmingham; RED at Bristol University.

Actual examples of spin-out companies, and talks given by scientists involved in commercialising their technologies, were a valuable supplement to company managers' presentations on technology transfer. These presentations helped trace the stages from initial R&D through to market.

One of the highlights of the tour was a visit to the Business West Support Agency for Bath and Bristol. The agency is a part of a nationwide network created to support the development of British companies at home and abroad. This helps to create links between entrepreneurial and innovative ideas and manufacturing and servicing needs in every region of the UK, and provides expert advice on how to run a business and helps entrepreneurs develop ideas into successful commercial projects. The agency also has close working relationships with British Embassies around the world, which is useful in evaluating opportunities for expansion into other sales territories.

The story of QinetiQ illustrates how a governmental organisation with a single customer - the Government - can make the transition to becoming a private company, and how the market for defence technologies can be diversified. The presentation on QinetiQ was greatly appreciated by the representatives of former Soviet Union Republics nuclear research centres.