The JRES Enterprise and Innovation team provides professional and experienced support on all intellectual property-related matters and commercial research endeavours at the Tooting campus of City St George’s, University of London and St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, both to our academic and clinical researchers and to interested external parties.
Generating impact from your research
The translation or transfer of educational and scientific research outputs (intellectual property or IP) into real-world applications and scenarios is an essential process to impact and benefit both society and economy. This process is called technology transfer or technology commercialisation and includes various steps from initial assessment of IP, protection, marketing and licensing.
Intellectual property (IP) can take various forms, including tangible (eg materials) and intangible (eg know-how) matters and can arise from educational and scientific research projects, research collaborations, consultancies and teaching activities. Typical IP arising from St George’s include:
- new biological reagents, drugs, medical devices, diagnostic procedures or therapies (patentable inventions)
- software, medical questionnaires, teaching materials or training manuals (copyright-protected inventions)
- know-how around new clinical findings and methodologies (protected through secrecy, called trade secret)
- databases for clinical and population data (protected through database rights).
Tell us about an invention
Telling the Entperprise & Innovation Office about your new invention is the first step to successful commercialisation. Making sure that your invention is kept confidential is very important. By disclosing the invention to the Enterprise & Innovation team before you submit an abstract or journal article for review allows us to protect the IP before it’s too late.
You can disclose a new invention to E&I through the Inventor Portal using the Inventor Portal Guide to help you navigate through the system.
IP Support in Grant Applications
Over the last few years IP has become focus for research funders from the UKRI through to Charities, particularly with the number of projects involving Industry Collaborators increasing. Often funders ask applicants to outline arrangements that are made with collaborating partners. We can help you to identify if any valuable IP is likely to be produced and negotiate IP terms with your collaborating partners at an early stage for contracting after award.
IP Terms in Research Agreements
E&I work closely with the Research Contracts team to ensure that IP terms in research agreements are well negotiatiated and appropriate for the type of collaboration.
Visit the Research Contracts pages for further information.
The technology transfer process
The JRES Enterprise and Innovation team will allocate a dedicated Enterprise and Innovation manager to you who will help you manage the process from first contact to the end. In fact, you are personally entitled to a financial reward according to City St George's, University of London's IP policy.
The first contact will usually happen on an informal basis (eg a conversation after a seminar or in the corridor, via email or in an arranged meeting). The initial invention disclosure information will then be logged on an invention disclosure form (Word), which will have to be completed by the inventor.
After receiving the invention disclosure, we will:
- conduct a prior art search (scientific and patent literature) to determine novelty
- conduct a market research to assess the need and the competitor landscape (commercial potential)
- develop a strategy for the commercialisation
- develop and advise on the appropriate method of IP protection
- work with external patent attorneys for patent protection
- prepare the value proposition and produce a non-confidential summary / marketing flyer
- build relationships with your commercial partners, including promoting and marketing your inventions to industry
- negotiate licence deals and manage spin-out company formation, ensuring that your academic interests remain protected.
After the licence deal is complete, we manage finances and distribute any financial income that are due to you personally.