(July 2, 2016) Economic
growth is the priority of every European government, and it can't come soon
enough. How can universities help?
Europe's
research universities are already making a huge economic contribution: that
much is obvious. We educate the future
workforce, we perform research which governments, business and industry
commission through research contracts, and we make discoveries and inventions
which, formalised in recent years as 'technology transfer', are put directly to
work by the private sector to generate economic return.
An example
from my university: in 1960, a pair of
Cambridge graduates formed a company called Cambridge Consultants, starting the
development of a cluster of high-tech companies around the University. This was later described as 'the Cambridge
Phenomenon': the process by which entrepreneurial scientists created companies
to take advantage of the proximity to a great research university - and, as the
cluster grew, to other companies doing similar things. Around the city we now have over 1,400
high-tech and bio-tech companies, from tiny recent 'spin-outs' from university
laboratories to arms of multinational companies like Microsoft. Eleven companies which started in the
Cambridge cluster are now valued at over 1 billion euro – including Autonomy
whose business software is in use in every industry, and ARM, whose microchips
are in your mobile phone, your car and your TV.