The science, innovation and business community came together this week at London’s Royal Institution and Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum to launch the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT).
GOTT, which forms part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), has been established to unlock the value of public sector knowledge assets, estimated to be worth over £106 billion, delivering economic, social and financial outcomes for the UK economy and taxpayers.
Science and Investment Security Minister Nusrat Ghani said:
The UK is an exceptional research, knowledge and innovation base, cementing its position as a genuine global science superpower.
However, British discoveries are too often brought to market elsewhere, taking the expertise and financial benefits from UK research to foreign economies.
This is why the work of excellent new Government Office for Technology Transfer, launching today, will be so important. I look forward to seeing this new office work to commercialise the UK’s outstanding home-grown knowledge assets to benefit our country’s economy, society, and position as an Innovation Nation.
GOTT CEO Dr Alison Campbell said:
I’m delighted to be able to mark the launch of the Government Office for Technology Transfer – as a dedicated team with a cross-government remit, it’s a first of its kind.
Our purpose is to raise awareness across government of the value of intangible knowledge assets and to provide practical advice and support to enable such opportunities to be properly exploited.
There is a wealth of knowledge, resources and intellectual property across the portfolio of government investments that has the power to drive innovation across business and the public sector. There are already many exciting examples of how these are contributing to the British economy. We want to enhance the scale and pace of knowledge asset development across the public sector.
Headquartered in Salford, GOTT hosted the second of its 2 launch events on Thursday at Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum, where BEIS Non-Executive Board Member, Vikas Shah, joined Alison Campbell to welcome invitees from the innovation ecosystem in the North, as well as showcasing the city as a centre for government innovation.
About the Government Office for Tech Transfer
GOTT, which is led by Dr Alison Campbell, sits within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and has a cross-government mandate to supercharge the identification, development and exploitation of public sector knowledge assets and to encourage the public sector to be more innovative and entrepreneurial in how it manages its own assets.
Knowledge assets include know-how, data, brands, business processes, expert resources and technology. Technology transfer is about sharing these assets with other organisations to stimulate innovation and the development of new products, processes and services and the creation of new commercial ventures.
GOTT has already begun to work with the public sector on innovations such as a cheaper higher intensity Vacuum Ultra-Violet (VUV) light source to purify water and the use of graphene biosensors to detect different health conditions and diseases using biomarkers in the human body.
Through providing both funding and expertise, GOTT will support projects such as these across government. It will also work with organisations that have a mature technology transfer capability to identify areas of synergy and best practice.
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