As Global University Venturing heads off into the holiday period, here is our list of the top 10 most read features this year.

Here is our list of the top 10 most read features on Global University Venturing this year. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your continued support and wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Our office is now closed until 6 January 2020 so all of our staff can get some well deserved rest.

  1. Revolutionising the learning experience – the story of BibliU

Tao Mantaras, co-founder and chief financial officer of BibliU, sat down with Global University Venturing early this summer to talk about how his company is fundamentally changing academic publishing and the learning experience.

  1. When worlds collide – CVC interest in spinouts

Steady is the assessment that comes to mind, rather than remarkable, when probing the year-on-year direction of corporate venture capital investment in spinouts. That doesn’t mean the interest in such deals isn’t increasing, as illustrated by this feature in our May issue.

  1. Tech Transfer Unit of the Year: ETH transfer

The GUV Awards are a highlight of our year and this year’s winner of the Tech Transfer Unit of the Year award showed that there are not only leaders to celebrate in the US or the UK. Our profile of ETH transfer made waves, having beaten prestigious peers such as MIT’s TLO and Oxford’s OUI.

  1. Unlocking innovation from research

We’ve long been fans of the work that In-Part do and it seems that you are, too. Here, Alex Stockham looks back on five years of the platform during which it initiated almost 5,000 connections between academia and industry.

  1. How to change the world for the better

Countless tech transfer offices have an internal funding mechanism to help spinouts get off the ground. Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds, led by Anne Dobrée, is among the most intriguing. Read this in-depth profile to find out why Seed Funds later won a GUV Award for Investment Unit of the Year.

  1. Exit of the Year: Ziylo

Ziylo, a spinout from University of Bristol working on technology to develop next-generation insulin, was acquired by pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk, doing not only a world of good but also providing a significant boost to the Bristol ecosystem.

  1. War on cancer – is the end in sight?

After more than four years of first looking at some of the university venturing trends in cancer treatment, we decided to find out how things had progressed. Expect cancer therapies to continue to be a major topic in the coming decade.

  1. Investment trends 2013-18

Believe it or not, we are already thinking about the next update to our yearly dive into long-term trends in university venturing. And it seems the report continues to gather a lot of interest – who said numbers were boring? (The late data visionary Hans Rosling said it.)

  1. Changing attitudes – sustainability, nutrition and wellness

Food is another topic that was much discussed this year (you may also want to check out our feature on lab-grown meat) and while agtech may not pop up often in daily news, it is an incredibly important area of research commercialisation. Find out why in this article from the March issue.

  1. Personality of the Year: Mark Mann

When it came to this year’s winner of the GUV Award for Personality of the Year, Mark really was the only Mann for the job (sorry). Where most tech transfer staff continues to focus on life sciences and IT, Mann has shifted his attention to the humanities and social sciences. With much of the world at a pivot point in socio-economic terms at the end of the decade, we expect to hear much more from Mann in the coming years – and we’re excited.

Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the editor of Global University Venturing, host of the Beyond the Breakthrough interview podcast and responsible for the monthly GUV Gazette (sign up here for free).