1. Spin-off and Commercialization of Intellectual Property Federico Canova – ELI-DC AISBL, Graham Appleby – European XFEL Facility
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2. Introduction
The development of advanced technologies is recognized worldwide as a key factor in long term successful economic development.
The EU, with its long term support of the high technology activities, has underlined this again within Horizon2020.
Research in general and the RIs in particular have a crucial role to play in this sense.

3. Introduction
The ALL-RI’s Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) support commercialization of the intellectual property (IP) via patenting and selling of a license, or grounding of spin-off companies.
Examples: a new undulator, a sample holder…
The number of patents produced, licenses sold and spin-offs grounded can provide direct measurement of the economic impact of the RI, and are of great interest to the RI’s funding bodies.

4. EUCALL Spin-off and Comm. of IP report
In this work, representatives of Technology Transfer Offices from each of the EUCALL consortium’s members, plus several external facilities, were interviewed about the level of support provided for commercialization of IP, including patent applications and fostering spin-off companies.
The majority of facilities represented of this study are located in Europe, with two from USA and one from Japan as a comparison.
RIs: DESY, Elettra, ELI-ALPS, ELI-Beamlines, ELI-NP, ESRF, European XFEL, HZDR, MAX IV L, PSI, SOLEIL, Brookhaven National Lab, SPring-8, Laboratory for Laser Energetics

5. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

6. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

7. Technology Transfer Offices
All RIs have a Technology Transfer Office (TTO) which takes care of intellectual property, commercialization and spin-off companies.
The TTO is generally a group which is part of the RI’s own administration, but at several RIs (ELI Beamlines, ELI-NP) these issues are handled by external agencies.
MAX IV’s technology transfer is handled by Lund University’s TTO (Lund University Innovation) while PSI’s TTO works in close collaboration with a large umbrella organization for Switzerland Innovation called PARK INNOVAARE.
A private company, HZDR innovation GmbH, fully owned by the HZDR, acts as a profit centre for its spin-offs.

8. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

9. Requirements from funding agencies
DESY, ELI-ALPS, ELI-Beamlines, HZDR, MAX IV, PSI recognize a requirement from the government/funding agencies to report their number of patents.
In some cases the Tech. Transfer offices are required to send statistics to the facility directors, but they do not know how the data is used or what is then reported to the funding agencies.
Statistics about patents and IP were not important for ESRF, Elettra or Soleil, as academic publications are of primary interest to the government/funding agencies.

10. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

11. Support of Spin-Offs (I)
At DESY, ELETTRA, HZDR, MAX IV and PSI, the TTO is able to provide full support for an employee to:
patent his work, perform market research, acquire seed money to start a spin-off company...
See also Support of Spin-Offs – M. Peloi / Elettra (14/11 16h)
ELI-ALPS and ELI-Beamlines also predict that they will provide this service to its scientists.
ESRF has a separate Innovation Center/Incubator in the vicinity which takes care of this directly.
At Soleil, spin-off creation isn’t a priority to the researchers, and start-up culture isn’t strongly developed.

12. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

13. Spin-Off companies (I)
The RIs interviewed described spin-off companies
which sell technology (undulator systems, fast x-ray cameras…),
as well as services
See also presentation Experience of a light source's spin-off company – R. Geometrante / Kyma Undulators (14/11 17h)
PSI has 9 spin-off companies, but only 4 are related to its synchrotron or FEL light sources.
PSI has two spin-off “contract research” companies who provide access to synchrotron radiation measurements for industrial users. (See Presentation on Commercial Access)

14. Spin-Off companies (II)
New technologies benefit mostly the further development of the facilities but may not contribute much to general innovation. Where is the most of the innovation potential coming from?

15. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

16. Regional ecosystems
These findings reflect two different models:
1) the RIs provide full support to innovation and commercialization and
2) RI focus on research while local/national offices/services are used to provide this support.
It is common across the RIs to host or exist within a “Science Village” around their RI – those which do not already do this are working on plans to begin this.

17. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

18. R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
DESY, HZDR and ELI-NP’s TTO could describe cases in which they had been approached by industry to provide know- how/support in developing a new product for commercialization, for example a vacuum pump or laser equipment.
DESY also has invented some new materials and allowed a company to develop them into a commercial product.
To develop further this topic, see the presentation: Technological transfer road-map at CEA – D. Normand / CEA (15/11 at 9h)

19. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

20. The funding of the spin-offs
The funding strategy is defined case by case
Depending on the support model:
1) the RIs provide full support and the funding model is linked to the facility structure
2) Local/national offices/services are used to provide this support and the funding is decided by the market.

21. Questions asked to TTO groups at each RI
What do you do to support Spin-off and transfer of knowledge to Industry?
1. Does your government expect significant economic development following their investment in your RI? How do your report this to the Government?
2. How does/will your RI support spin-off companies?
3. If relevant, please give examples of recent spin-off companies. How are they succeeding?
4. Do you envision a regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high- tech companies and spin-offs in the vicinity of your RI? How is this being implemented?
5. Do you have R&D collaboration with Industrial Partners
6. Do you have any examples of the presence of Private Investors or Venture Capitalists in Technology Transfer?
7. Have you had any examples of “Open Innovation” development of technology?

22. Open Innovation
Open innovation is clearly supported and encouraged by EC
The TTO offices are quite unanimous on the pressure coming from industry for a clear strategy on IP protection.
Open innovation seems to be welcomed only for software development projects. The TTO admit to follow strictly the requirement of the target industry (pharmaceutical, chemical) on this topic.
MAX IV described a case in which a life-science researcher did not want to commercialize his invention, and he published his work. This disclosure completely prevented his discovered technique from coming to market in a classical way.
Should the RIs find new ways to do business with the industry?

23. Motivation of scientists for commercialization
A point raised in this study is that many scientists are not interested in or are unwilling to take care to protect or commercialize their inventions. The need is to generate a large number of publications, to assist in the next job application or Grant Proposal.
Issue: publication vs. commercialization vs. spreading common knowledge and advancing research.
See also the Panel Discussion: Publication vs commercialization (15/11 at 10h)
DESY and PSI organize events such as internal workshops for how to commercialize IP and start spin-off companies.

24. The questionnaire for the new facilities
European XFEL is still in its construction phase and has not yet fully defined its policies regarding these issues. European XFEL’s TTO leader is interested in the results of EUCALL’s current analysis to learn from the best practices of other light sources.
ELI pillars could already provide details on their expected TTO policies (ELI-TRANS project results, they also expressed interest in the results of EUCALL’s current analysis.
MAX IV’s TTO (Lund University Innovation) was able to report many patents and technical spin-off companies; however none of these activities were related to MAX IV / synchrotron technologies.

25. A glimpse of TTO in Japan and USA (I)
Spring-8 (JP) reports that they have no metric for reporting economic development to their funding agencies, outside of industrial access to its instruments. They have no activity in generation of patents, spin-off companies or a Science Village/Innovation Centre.
Brookhaven National Lab (USA) also has no metric for reporting economic development to their funding agencies, but has an IP office that helps support any spin-offs.
Neither SPring-8 nor Brookhaven National Lab is interested in developing their own regional ecosystem of academic institutions, high-tech companies and spin-offs.

26. A glimpse of TTO in Japan and USA (II)
The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (USA) has no specific program in supporting spin-off companies.
In the USA the support for Spin Off and Commercialization depends strongly on the funding agency, and can be quite different between DoE funded RIs and others such as Stanford’s synchrotron and FEL sources. These policies can all be influenced during with changes in the administration and funding allocations. In Europe similar changes might be expected.

27. The role of clusters to develop innovation
Only HZDR reports about strategic measures connecting more than one institute, as part of the Helmholtz Society. The role of the clusters must be developed!
To continue the discussion, see also the presentations:
Photonics21 support to spin-offs and technology road-maps – S. Royo / Photonics21 (14/11 at 13h30)
Fraunhofer support to spin-offs and technology road-maps – H. Hoffmann / ILT Aachen (14/11 at 14h00
Activities of LaserLab-Europe industrial board – C. Simon Boisson / Thales (15/11 at 9h30)

28. National and international patterns
The surveyed RIs show that their approach in supporting such innovation issues is rather inhomogeneous and some RIs see significantly less drive than others.
At which level is this defined: is it specific for a particular RI, for its local environment or for the respective nation?
What about multi-site transnational facilities like ELI? Which are the expectations from the EU and where do they apply ?
To continue the discussion, see also the presentations:
Technology Transfer at European XFEL – A. Bonucci / European XFEL (15/11 at 12h00)
Technology Transfer at ELI-ERIC / ELI TRANS – A. Hála / ELI-Beamlines (15/11 a 14h30)

29. Recommendation (I):
Investigate exactly how the economic impact of RIs is actually measured by directors/policy makers, and what are recent patterns for individual RIs.
Increase of recognition for patents filed, IP generated for researchers’ CVs. This can encourage researchers to consider protecting their IP
To improve success of RI spin-off companies, increase knowledge about them within the network of RIs. Most RI spin-off companies specialize in photon-science technologies, so their main customers would be other photon science RIs.

30. Recommendations (II):
Database (or similar) of patents held by RIs, possibilities for patent-holders to find researchers with similar interests at partner RIs for possible collaboration.
Create a network for the TTO offices, to facilitate the exchanges and the synergies on the different topics, especially on the scientist training for entrepreneurship.
To increase the number of successful spin-offs, it would be useful to involve business oriented profiles (e.g. business school students) very early in the process of qualification of the business idea at the TTO.

31. Conclusions
One should not be too quick with conclusions about what researchers should do or not.
The issue of publication vs commercialization vs spreading common knowledge and advancing research is a very important aspect of innovation, IP protection and open research.
Two different models peak out:
RIs provide full support to innovation & commercialization;
RI focus on research and local/national offices/services are used to provide this support

32. Conclusions
Very few RIs report about strategic measures connecting more than one institute, basically only HZDR (HGF). Networking is necessary to develop this point.
Does the innovation potential come from the technology developed or from the scientific experiments of the facility? Which part of the facility activity brings the real innovation?

33. Thank you for your attention www.eucall.eu / contact@eucall.eu
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