Spinout successes

HESA recently updated its register of university spinouts. It’s an impressive list in many ways and offers useful information about a little known part of higher education but one which is hugely important to economic growth. It’s a long journey from research idea to initial investment to the establishment of an actual spin out company. Most innovations don’t make it that far and even those that do are not necessarily going to succeed.

But this innovation ecosystem is vital for future economic success and it is good to see this information out there. As HESA notes:

The purpose of the register is to provide authoritative data on the role of providers in driving commercial and social innovation. In addition, the register creates a baseline for data linking with other sources, enabling users to generate additional insights based on their needs and interests.

Universities then are very much at the forefront of innovation.

Backing a winner

All of this reminded me of a notable set of events from over 40 years ago which I had only been aware of from a photo. At a recent dinner of Warwick administrative leaders of the recent and far past (including the great and the very great) I did make an enquiry of those who might have witnessed the event pictured above.

It features the University of Warwick Council trying out what was expected to be a revolutionary mode of transport, the Sinclair C5. The vehicle it turns out had been developed on the fledgling Warwick Science Park. 

So, not quite a spinout but certainly innovation. And associated with a university. Although things did not in the end turn out well for the product as anyone who was around at that time can remember. It had many strengths but just a few really very major flaws which it seemed were unlikely to be overcome easily.

The C5 may not have turned out to be the world changing transport method which Sir Clive Sinclair and the University of Warwick Council had hoped for but it did signify the important linkage between innovation and universities.

You can read the full details in the story from the Warwick Science Park. According to those at the dinner it was pretty much as noted in this report with one important additional point about what happened subsequently. 

It does seem from what my former colleagues recalled, that some of those C5s ended up with the Warwick Estates Team who found them handy for getting around campus. And, inevitably perhaps, for races at the annual Estates summer party.

That’s innovation for you – it’s impossible to predict how it will turn out.