How do university-industry partnerships benefit Imperial's impact, whilst ensuring research integrity? Can the goals of academia and business align?

Meet Dr Viraj Perera, our Faculty of Natural Sciences (FoNS) Director of Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation (IPC).

Originally from Sri Lanka, Viraj’s academic journey took him from a Life Sciences undergraduate degree in India, to a PhD in Applied Biotechnology in Australia, where he became curious to explore what happens when science is translated into impact outside a lab.

After winning a business plan competition in partnership with his supervisor, he developed a successful biotech start-up, taking the company from concept to commercial doorstep with private sector VC and Australian government funding. Neither a purely academic, nor solely entrepreneurial career, however, gave him the development in both spheres that really excited him, so he transitioned into technology transfer roles, within both companies and universities, before bringing his experience to Imperial in February 2021.

I caught up with him to find out more about IPC in an academic context: in what ways can it benefit our academics, their research and its impact? How does the IPC team ensure research integrity? Can the values and goals in the differing cultures of business and academia align?

Hi Viraj, some FoNS research has obvious societal applications, but can researchers in the more “blue skies”, fundamental sciences gain from engaging with the IPC team?

We’re not aiming to tell academics in the fundamental sciences to change their focus towards translation or applied research… there are examples of when “blue-sky” research has been translated really successfully. Dr Viraj Perera Director of FoNS IPC

So-called “blue skies” research is an integral part of Imperial’s mission to generate knowledge and share it. We’re not aiming to tell academics in the fundamental sciences to change their focus, or tweak their projects more towards translation or applied research. In fact, it’s incorrect to say that “blue-skies” research has no applications – much of it may not have a specific or direct industry application, but there are examples of when it has been translated really successfully.

The advantage of engaging with the IPC team is that we may be able to identify opportunities where the researcher can take their work beyond the specific area that they're focused on. A good example came from a PhD student at Oxford’s Department of Zoology – perhaps one of the last places that people would look for inventions – who really thought outside the box. He saw that the state-of-the-art animations of organisms he created, which very much fell into the category of "blue skies" research, could be translated for use in video games and movies. He’d created algorithms that generated incredibly life-like visuals, replicating detailed expressions like eye movement. He spun out a company called Natural Motion, and over a period of 14 years worked with clients including Sony PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox and Apple App games. In 2014the company was acquired for $527 million by an American games company called Zynga.

It can be beneficial for all kinds of academics to talk to us, not only for potential intellectual property (IP) rights that can arise from their research, but also in cases where industry partners are interested in hot topics such as sustainability – for example, reducing their carbon footprint. Blue sky research may well align with these industry goals, and we might be able to bring them together in a meaningful and positive way.

In what ways might ideas and skills from the world of IPC feed into early career researchers’ career aspirations?

For PhD students it provides an open-ended opportunity: if they want to progress in an academic career as a researcher, they can; if they want to explore entrepreneurship at the same time, they can. Experiencing IPC early on in their career doesn’t define where they’ll go, it just expands the possibilities of where they take their skills, broadening academic pathways into areas of translation like I, and most of my team members, have done.

If a PhD student aspires to become a researcher, it's good to have an understanding about the basic knowledge around IP so that it's in mind when they're writing their next grant application or when they talk to their industry collaborators. If we train PhD students to think creatively by identifying real-world problems first, and then creating a solution, it can help with focus, and with things like funding, creating impact and in REF/KEF assessments. There are many examples of university spinout companies where the founders and board members are also practicing academic researchers.

What advice would you give to staff and students who are curious, but not confident in entrepreneurship?

Get started and see if it's for you. Join the FoNS Founder Forum (FFF), which attracts academics with a lot of entrepreneurship experience, and also those who are only just dipping their toes into this world. Contact the IPC team to see how we can help, and explore the other support mechanisms available at Imperial, like the Incubator and Advanced Hackspace. The whole White City cluster is really exciting – an ever-growing innovation ecosystem that people can go and learn a lot from.

The best way to develop confidence is just by doing it. Training courses can give you the tools, but you've got to use those tools to build something. And it’s clearly worth it – Innovate UK, for example, has a funding allocation of more than £660m this year. I came across three Research Councils whose total budgets combined were less than what's been given to Innovate UK – that's a strong message. Translation is important. Impact is important. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everybody – and if your heart isn’t in it, then it makes sense to focus your career path purely on the research domain, but if you’re vaguely intrigued, what’s stopping you from taking the first step to find out more?

If you subsequently find it's not for you, that’s fine – you haven’t moved out of your research domain. And if you get a taste for business and want to capitalise on that, you’ve made a great start. The support systems within universities have really developed – there are many more opportunities in this sphere now than there ever used to be.

What interesting projects have you been working on recently?

I've been working very closely with a large multinational company, who is also our biggest corporate partner, looking at establishing new CDTs and Prosperity Partnerships. This company currently sponsors about 15 Imperial PhD students in Natural Sciences and Engineering. It’s always really exciting to nurture these partnerships, and to see companies getting excited about Imperial’s brilliant ecosystem.

Procter and Gamble’s Senior Vice President made a visit to Imperial recently. We hosted them for a whole day, showcasing our academics and various research projects, plus initiatives relating to sustainability, which is high on their agenda. They're looking at reducing carbon footprint to net zero, so they’re really interested in the College's ongoing initiatives and work in this area.

Our team has also been working on a couple of start-up companies in FoNS that have attracted about £1m in funding, one of which we’re hoping will be spun out soon – we're looking at concluding an investment of over £3 million into that start-up.

What are the similarities and differences between the worlds of business and academia?

When we talk about commercialisation and funding we're often looking - in both cases - at what kind of impact our research could make out there in the real world for economic and societal benefit. Dr Viraj Perera Director of FoNS IPC

They're very different cultures, often with misaligned motivations, and this is important to take into consideration.

Universities are generally large, slow-moving, bureaucratic organisations, whose motivations are focused around knowledge creation and sharing, teaching, attracting grants and funding, and research publications. They're perhaps more risk averse – much more focused on their reputation and on creating societal impact when it comes to translational research.

Businesses – both largescale, and SMEs – are profit-driven. Their focus is on improving bottom line profits and business sustenance. Apart from large and multinational companies, many corporates are much smaller in scale compared to universities, so of course their pace of operation is faster – more agile and dynamic. It’s not necessarily always easy to bring these two cultures together to collaborate.

Our focus is bridging gaps so that science – and society – can benefit from industrial funding. Language is a funny thing. Sometimes commercialisation is a dirty word, but funding is not – likewise, the notion of revenue or income. But often, when we talk about commercialisation and funding what we're looking at in both cases is what kind of impact could our research make out there in the real world for economic and societal benefit? That’s what should be the primary focus with translational research. If there's some money generated as a result, it's a bonus. People have different motivations, but there's a misconception that commercialisation is all about earning money or generating revenue – that’s not the case, though the research institution will be focused in generating some fair monetary value.

How does IPC ensure integrity in the decisions behind, and impact of, commercialised research? Do you explore ethical dimensions?

Communication and conversation are key. It’s important to ensure academics know that we’re here to play a supporting role and not to disturb their main focus, which is to conduct research. We try to highlight all the ways in which their work might have value – societal as well as financial – if it’s translated, and the ways in which IPC can approach it creatively and remove as much burden as possible. Our FoNS Founders Forum (FFF) also aims to nurture a supportive and informal environment where connections can happen.

Plus, it depends on who you're speaking to. Some academics are more inclined towards entrepreneurship than others – perhaps they need less IPC support. Others are happy to disclose their research, but don't really want to be proactive in the commercial side of things. Some are more ambivalent – interested but less comfortable or confident in the world of business – they may want more interaction with IPC. Some have no interest in exploring industry collaboration at all, which we respect.

We try to map out how IPC can benefit academics, their research group, the College and wider society, so communication is incredibly important in finding out how our team can best support those who need and want it – in identifying a researcher’s priorities and preferences, the opportunities that they’re most interested in and what they want to get out a collaboration. All this could start from a brief catch up over a coffee!

So, there’s room for lots of different personality types when it comes to engaging with IPC and the FoNS Founders Forum?

When an academic succeeds entrepreneurially it can be really inspiring for others in their research group and departments – not only because of the financial benefits, but also the increase in prestige if their product or company does well. Part of the funding they receive will go into the department to be spent on further research, for example, but College’s policy also clearly outlines that if IP is successfully commercialised, some of the proceeds include no strings attached income that goes to the inventors. If people want to gift that back to the College or department they’re welcome to.

Tell us more about how your team supports academics

We help academics to navigate through the research translation or technology transfer process, as well as in the creation of industry partnerships. With regard to translational research, we help academics to identify research projects with commercial potential, to protect their inventions and to transfer the knowledge to an industry partner for full development and commercialisation. We also help interested researchers to form spinout companies and develop their inventions further via company formation and capital raising.

With regard to industry partnerships, we help academics to secure PhD studentships – via CDTs, for example – with industry partners with leverage funding, from the likes of EPSRC. We also link up with various initiatives available for establishing industry partnerships. We recently did a session with Innovate UK about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, which are an excellent initiative for early career researchers and academics – a really great opportunity to explore industry partnerships and test drive your entrepreneurial skills.

What makes Imperial such an exciting place to work and study if you're in any way entrepreneurially-minded?

Number one, it's the quality of research – it’s very impressive, and undoubtedly that's why we're one of the top-ranked universities in the world. Imperial has also got the highest number of business partnerships of all UK universities. In the last knowledge exchange framework (KEF) ranking we scored ten out of ten. These two aspects alone would be a very good indication of why it's exciting to be working here if you're entrepreneurially-driven, and mean that the likelihood of a researcher being able to develop their entrepreneurial skills at the College is very high.

Then of course there’s the benefit of having access to the London ecosystem, which is one of Europe's – and moreover, one the world's best – it's buzzing with deep pockets. VCs are constantly looking out for good investment opportunities, so the whole industry cluster around London is motivating. If you have a good idea, there's money and an inspiring innovation ecosystem at your doorstep.

Thanks Viraj! 

You can find out more about the FoNS IPC team on our website, and contact Dr Luis Gomez Sarosi to get added to the FoNS Founder's Forum mailing list.

The FoNS Founders Forum (FFF)

FoNS academics – join us for the next FoNS Founders Forum on the 4 May, 14.00-14.45, with Dr Jon Allin who specialises in innovation and scaling early-stage businesses, combining broad commercial experience and technology leadership. Email Dr Luis Gomez Sarosi to register.