Big ideas hatched on campus
From curing sleep problems to turning waste into biodegradable plastic; from treating autism to getting your physio exercises right, UCD academics have come up with innovative solutions to contemporary problems. And, thanks to NovaUCD, the campus innovation centre, these are being commercialised. Bridget Hourican explores some of the companies and ideas incubating

Alongside teaching and research, innovation is the third pillar of education. That is the message from UCD president, Dr Hugh Brady: “Ireland needs world class graduates, expert in their specific fields, who understand techniques in innovation and entrepreneurship that will enable them to rapidly convert knowledge, ideas and inventions into commercial use.”
Central to the development of this innovation culture is NovaUCD, established in 2003, the first innovation and technology transfer centre in Ireland, and still the most successful, rated on a number of benchmarks. “Our role,” says Dr Pat Frain, head of NovaUCD, “is to identify and commercialise intellectual property arising from the University’s research.” By June 2009, Nova had already met most of its annual targets for invention disclosures, patent applications, licence agreements, and incorporating spin-outs. Twenty-five ventures, currently located in NovaUCD, range from the established BiancaMed, currently launching a global product, to Equinome, a venture from the UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, just starting out on the NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme (CCDP). The recent sale of ChangingWorlds to Amdocs, a US-quoted technology group, for over $60 million, brought the total investment and realisation in UCD spin-outs, in the past decade, to more than $200 million.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THIS STORY IN THE 2009/2010 ISSUE OF UCD Connections Magazine, OUT NOW
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