Internship at the Heriot-Watt University (Edinburg, Scotland)

The group of the eight most successful students  from the TTM-S project Transnational Technology Transfer Manager  – the application of the European educational model at the Charles University in Prague – participated at the short-term internship (from June 6 to June 10, 2011) at the HWU in Edinburg.The group was led by I. Dvořák and K. Čihařová and organized by the Technology & Research Services responsible for the technology transfer. This department has 28 part-time employees who, except for the technology transfer activities, are working at various university departments. The team helps about a thousand of researchers with the commercialization matters.

Content of the presentations included twenty case studies describing spin-off companies’ establishment and early stage companies’ development. It appeared that the commercialisation processes are rather slow and complicated even in Scotland and that there is also a lack of good innovative ideas and technologies. However, the financial and political support is much more advanced in Scotland compared to the Czech Republic. Various financial resources from the public budget, public funding, business-angels, or venture capital are easily accessible. In addition the whole process is accompanied by the many consultation and mediating organizations which help the technology transfer and SME establishment to succeed. Their activities are also supported by both national and EU resources.