Starting a business? : Spin out

The objectives of the White Rose Universities in their spin out activities are:
· To be involved in the wealth creation process
· To provide an additional mechanism to get research results into practice
· To create wealth for themselves and their staff

The objective is not to encourage valued members of staff to leave. Some might wish to become chief executive officers of new companies and start careers but the normal arrangements are for members of staff to have roles as technical directors or in some cases non-executive directors and continue with their academic role.

Success often resides in having a continuing strong link between the spin out and the University research group and this is most effective when the academic 'spans ' the two activities.

Success also often resides in having technically knowledgeable staff in the spin out at the outset and the movement of graduate staff from research group to spin out is encouraged.

Success also depends on careful business research, protection of relevant intellectual property and the assembly of necessary team and resources. The WRCE universities have specialist technology transfer offices and exploitation companies to provide support from the early evaluation of an idea through to the formation of a spin out company. They are there to help.