UCD provides base for tech innovators

Dr Pat Frain's business may be science and technology, but his passion is his €1 coffee. "Cappuccino, latte, black coffee - all €1!" he says delightedly.

Cheap coffee may seem a small detail but it is part of the strategy to get entrepreneurs and the staff of their young companies to mix at NovaUCD, University College Dublin's business innovation and technology transfer centre.

Frain is the director of the two-year-old, €11 million centre, based in an enormous 18th century home and its stables, just off the Foster Avenue end of UCD.

The design of the buildings is intended to encourage what many employers discourage - congregating in hallways, chats in stairwells, and in general, multiple opportunities to meet in common areas. A centrepiece of this plan is the cafe with the cheap coffee to lure skint entrepreneurs in for a break where they can meet others, exchange ideas, and resolve problems.

With 17 companies settled in the various suites of rooms in the restored stables area - where light from windows and skylights, white walls and warm wood interiors makes for welcoming surroundings - Frain is pleased with the growth at NovaUCD.

He sees it as a catalyst for business growth, not just providing a support and advice system for young companies, especially campus companies such as UCD tech success stories Massana, WBT Systems, Changing Worlds and NTera, but a place for UCD students to get bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.

Hence the centre does an interesting range of what might be termed outreach: offering weekly public lunchtime talks by a successful Irish entrepreneur, where students - or anyone - is invited along to listen, munch sandwiches and ask questions. Then there are more detailed weekly presentations, where an entrepreneur will get into the nitty gritty of running a company with the Nova centre residents. What the centre is really about, however, is "tech transfer", which Frain defines as "the transfer of technology from research into the market; the development into intellectual property (IP); creating models for commercialisation; the process of establishing a business - the whole gamut of taking a product to market or setting up a licensing deal".

That intention for the centre arose out of a realisation that young Irish companies needed structured help in getting science and technology projects and services to market, says Frain, and in developing IP: the centre does not only work with campus companies, and any company can apply to NovaUCD.

Ireland comes in near the bottom of international tables on the production of IP and patents, despite its reputation in the past decade of being a rapidly-growing industrial centre for science and technology, a problem that Frain hopes can be tackled by NovaUCD.

One of the difficulties is in getting Government - which often thinks in the short term - to understand that the payback from science and technology patents and IP often comes a decade or more in the future, usually after the Government sees the benefits of policies created now.

He cites an international example, the University of California (UC). "In 2002, it was one of the highest earners in the US in terms of royalties from IP," says Frain. "About 90 per cent of that came from IP disclosed before 1990, and 54 per cent came from IP disclosed before 1980."

Hence the need for the long-term view. Additionally, he notes that not all investments will pay off in royalties from IP.

Most of UC's income comes from a small number of very big projects, he says. Ireland has not yet seen those types of big payback, but he notes that UCD, among nine Irish universities, leads in the amount of revenue generated from IP, with most coming from a single project, the BSE test developed by UCD campus company, Enfor Scientific.

He'd argue that such a company should not be seen as a success just for its IP, but has wider benefits to the economy too. Some 100 people are employed by Enfor, it generates about €20 million revenue on turnover of about €30 million, and therefore feeds taxes and other benefits back into the economy.

IP issues are high on Frain's agenda though, and he's worked to make Ireland more visible - and keep it involved - in international groups related to IP development.

One group is ProTon Europe, a pan-European network for knowledge and tech transfer, where NovaUCD leads the patenting and intellectual property working group. Another is membership of Auril, the Association of Research and Industrial Links Council, an international body.

He'd like to see the Government make a stronger commitment to investment in research and development (R&D). Although this has risen quickly in recent years, Ireland is still at the bottom of industrialised and European nations when it comes to R&D investment, he notes.

Ireland is still below 2 per cent of GDP for investment in R&D, whereas Japan puts in over 3 per cent and the US, just below 3 per cent. The Scandinavian countries are around 3 per cent.

"When you consider the amount of money invested in research in Ireland, it's not enough," he says.

What are the next challenges for the centre? Frain points to aundeveloped set of buildings that he'd like to see turned into laboratories and more offices, but that will cost several million euro.

Several life sciences-oriented companies are affiliated to the centre, but are based next to the labs over in UCD's science wing, the Conway Centre. It might be more beneficial to have them closer to the business support system of NovaUCD, he thinks.

Accelerating the commercialisation process for life sciences companies is a task for Nova, he says, as is expanding the tech transfer team. Finding people with such a background is difficult, so a masters in tech transfer is being considered at the centre.

He'd like to develop the attic and basement of the 18th century house - he likes their nooks and crannies and regrets they aren't an active part of the house. He'd also love to turn the courtyard of the undeveloped side of the house into a covered, outdoor patio - no doubt, for further mingling over those €1 cappuccinos.