Snapshot Brief:

Intending Academic Founders can understand 'what's needed to form a University spinout by attending this 1-day intensive master-class course. By doing, the course can help facilitating the academic to become an investable DeepTech Founder while creating an investable company (out of the University). Due to lack of awareness on the expected behavioural and business domain knowledge as a spinout founder (in the context of a University environment), Academic Spinout Founders often struggle with transitioning their role from being an academic staff (with the responsibility to continue ‘ongoing teaching and research works within the University’) to being a company founder running the spinout operations in the early days of company formation, after having gone through the ‘complicated procedures of getting a spinout company proposal approved by the employer University’.

Requirements

• Reasonable understanding/experience of undertaking a research/commercial project
• Having a reasonable technology/product development experience (inside/outside a University)
• Basic understanding of project budgeting & company's financial cashflow estimation
• Able to use online training platforms & basic IT tools (e.g. Zoom, Google Meet, MS Office)

Features

• Sharing practical examples of sample spinout projects & University Founders in UK
• Easy to adopt techniques and approaches by Academic Founders on own spinout projects
• Explaining bigger picture logic of 'expectations of diverse stakeholders involved in spinout formation'
• All-in-One training course capturing the essential needs to form an investable spinout company

Target audiences

• Academics in Research-intensive institutions (e.g. University, Research Institutes)
• Post-Graduate (PG) Research Students or Students with Research interest
• Technology Transfer Office (TTO) Staffs with spinout formation support roles
• Research Support (RS) and Knowledge Exchange (KE) Professionals

Due to lack of awareness on the expected behavioural and business domain knowledge as an academic spinout founder (in the context of a University environment), Academic Spinout Founders often struggle in preparing themselves to transition from their existing role of being an academic staff (with the responsibility to continue ‘ongoing teaching and research works within the University’) to being a company founder running the spinout operations in the early days of company formation, after having gone through the ‘complicated procedures of getting a spinout company proposal approved by the employer University’.

Similarly, Post-Graduate Research (PGR) Student Founders also often find uneasy to transition from being an independent researcher on a complex technology development project to being an investable startup founder (alongside the lack of support guidance that can help in quick transformation of a R&D project from a technology prototype status to a market-acceptable product).

For Startup Founders, it is crucial to prepare themselves & their startup proposal by aligning to the expectations of angel investors and Venture Capitalists (as per the usually known Founder/Startup investment checklist used by these investors) and the founders ought to know in advance the pros & cons of joining an incubator/accelerator programme run by some funders or startup support operators (apart from preparing applications to get approved into those startup support programmes)’.

Intending Academic Founders can understand ‘what’s needed to form a University spinout’ by attending this 1-day intensive master-class course. By doing, the course can help facilitating the academic to become an investable DeepTech Founder while creating an investable company (out of the University). Technology Transfer Office (TTO) staffs who are moving into ‘spinout creation and post-spinout support’ roles can also join this course to understand the practical aspects of spinout formation tasks essential to form an investable spinout.

Note: Deep tech (or deep technology) refers to companies and startups that develop innovative products based on substantial scientific discoveries or meaningful engineering breakthroughs. Unlike “shallow tech,” which focuses on incremental improvements to existing digital services (e.g., a new mobile app), deep tech aims to solve complex, global challenges like climate change, disease, and resource scarcity.

This course intends to provide an overview of ‘a list of tasks (with tips on how to complete them)’ needed by an academic or an independent researcher/student for supporting self-transition from their current roles inside a University or research project to being a spinout/startup founder.

What You’ll Learn From This Course

• Module-1: Walking through a spinout/startup journey to realise responsibilities – Basics
• Module-2: Working on the needs of a spinout/startup conception – Intermediate
• Module-3: Preparing tasks of company formation and surviving early years’ operation – Advance

Certification

All attendees will be provided an acknowledgement certificate (PDF copy) of having completed the training course.

FAQs

Are training contents relevant to 'academic founders and TTO staffs' outside of the UK?

Training materials have been prepared in the context of undertaking spinout creation projects by academic founders within the UK's Higher Education landscape. However, 99% of the course contents are applicable to non-UK working environment (apart from slight differences in the norms/rules of funding and governance mechanisms adopted for spinout formation support services).

How much does a potential trainee need to know Intellectual Properties (IPs) prior to attending this course?

As a minimum expectation on the IP basic knowledge, the academic founder (or PGR student) ought to have read the dictionary meaning of various IP types - Copyright, Design Rights (Registered/Unregistered), Trademark, Confidentiality, Trade Secret, Patent. However, there is no expectation that the potential trainee ought to know in details of how various IP types relate to research projects or innovative ideas. This Course discusses larger business topics beyond the limited scope of IP protection aspect.

Is 1-day sufficient to empower a University Founder on all aspects of a spinout formation?

The Course content and training approach focus mainly on 'the bigger picture logic of why' and 'some readymade tips of using/understanding the spinout creation essentials' to the 'existing research project or spinout formation idea' of the Academic Founder or PGR Student. The training contents of this course can be considered as reasonably sufficient for a University Founder to gain 'average to good' knowledge on 'all technical and commercial development aspects' as well as 'the general spinout formation approval process adopted in most UK Universities'. However, there is always some gap between learning and executing. The trainee is recommended to read through 'freely available' additional learning resources on spinout formation and operation for enhancing knowledge/skills.

Can Staffs from Research Support Office (RSO) or Technology Transfer Office (TTO) in Research Institutions also attend this course?

Yes, the course contents and training approach have been designed with an aim to enable easy understanding by a PGR Student or Academic Founder, thereby the terminologies and wordings used are the ones written from a researcher/academic's perspective. However, Staffs in Research Support Office (RSO) or Technology Transfer Office (TTO) of various institutions may find the course contents useful, if they are moving into the role of 'facilitating spinout formation activities (esp. hands-on business case preparation of the spinout company operation).