Technology Transfer Agreements (Hansard, 15 January 2004)

§ Ms Hewitt

My Department promotes the transfer of technology between many organisations in the UK and between British and overseas organisations. Our aim is to improve the productivity and competitiveness of British businesses along the lines we have set out in the recent Innovation Report "Competing in the global economy: the innovation challenge".

Although my Department assists the process of technology transfer through business support products such as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, the vast majority of technology transfer agreements are arranged privately. I welcome the considerable expansion of technology and knowledge transfer in the UK that has occurred in recent years, largely as a result of innovative programmes such as the Higher Education Innovation Fund, that have seeded the idea of spin-out firms or other exploitation of science and technology in the minds of our researchers and technologists in academia and business.