3.3 WAYS OF THE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
3.3.2 Other ways of knowledge transfer from the University of Oxford
Begbroke Science Park offers space for emerging science and technology companies to grow in a safe and enables talented young researchers to translate academic innovation into commercial reality
The vision of this science park is “to create and sustain an environment in which the interaction of Research, Business and Learning constantly produce new synergies – and to translate these synergies into innovations to meet today’s industrial challenges.
Research - currently working in five major interdisciplinary areas:
1. Industrial Materials and Manufacturing 2. Aerospace and Automotive
3. Nanotechnology
4. Environmental Technology
5. IT & Communications Engineering
Business – from the birth of a new idea, through start-up, to medium or long-term developments for established businesses.
Begbroke offers to spin-out and start-up companies working from inside and outside the University a home in incubation facilities with practical start-up help. New enterprises can work with novel technologies and can benefit from unique networking opportunities, laboratory facilities and, perhaps most importantly, access to ongoing academic research.
The most important part of the Begbroke Science Park is the Centre for Innovation and Enterprise. The centre has a mixture of ground and first floor offices and wet and dry laboratory spaces in a variety of sizes, and has been designed for maximum flexibility in use.
The innovative use of service risers means that specialist facilities can be installed easily and cost-effectively as companies request them. Facilities include a professional reception, meeting room, kitchen and common area. The Centre Manager is based within the centre and is on to help you settle in. All rooms have structured cabling to enable computers and telephones to be networked easily with a state of the art telephone system and high speed internet connection.
Meeting room facilities can be used free of charge. The Science Park also has a number of meeting rooms and conference facilities, some of which are free to site tenants.
These are equipped with a full range of audio-visual equipment, teleconferencing facilities as well as data and voice connection points. The subsidised on-site restaurant offers hot and cold
meals and can also offer hospitality for meetings, from working lunches to hot and cold buffets. Many other on-site services are also available.
Learning - Begbroke is committed to offering learning tools, workshops, seminars and accredited courses to the widest possible range of users, from schoolchildren and the general public to business people and specialist researchers. The focus is especially on nanotechnology and climate change.
Oxford Business Alumni was launched in 1998 and now has almost 2,000 members, who benefit from access to a worldwide network of members, current students, and the Business Alumni website of news and resource links.
Key benefits of Oxford Business Alumni (OBA) membership include:
• Access to a worldwide network of members through the OBA members’ directory;
international chapters and professional interest networks
• Access to a dedicated alumni website
• An email account and forwarding facility
• Regular mailings of ‘Business at Oxford’ and Alumni News
• Access to Said Business School (integral part of Oxford University) facilities (subject to conditions)
• Invitations to academic, social and networking events Oxford Science Park
Oxford's first science park, the Oxford Science Park, opened in 1991. More than 430,000 sq ft of office and laboratory space has been completed to date. A further phase of development is currently underway and will extend the total development to approximately 700,000 sq ft.
Case Studies
There are activities of individual Oxford academics or those with spin-offs based on University research in science and technology.
Venturefest is the international event celebrating enterprise and innovation and promoting the commercialisation of new technology.
CONCLUSION
The aim of our work was to explain theoretical and practical functioning of the knowledge economy in regions. To achieve this we have introduced knowledge economy in general and then we have applied its principles on region and one of its main part (in our case) university that is the place where (just in the knowledge economy) knowledge come from and where are transferred to the environment from. We wanted the theoretical base that was used, to become like a challenge and to offer chance for right response. We always have potential future development of region in mind. The example of The Oxford University should serve as an impulse for further thinking, developing and preparing of new ways of knowledge transfer from university to other regions. This should happen without abstraction from concrete structure and conditions in regions that we will possibly think about in the future.
We could not avoid some of the main conditions of positive university influences on region as we have shown them in the table “Myth and Reality of University Impacts”.
University can bring development e.g. in technological maturity of region. On the other hand this development can bring some negatives and problems (e.g. pollution). That has happened in Silicon Valley as well.
We cannot imagine the knowledge economy without “tacit knowledge - knowledge that are more than information, are not easily transported and that require people. There is also one thing that we have noticed and has impact on university. It is the mobility of people.
Universities try to retain knowledge that are embodied e.g. in researchers near the university.
There are some chances how to provide against brain-drain just through various tools of knowledge transfer that we have introduced in this work. Different kind of knowledge transfer should help to retain and bring direct financial or other advantages (attraction) that can lead to the development of the territory near the university (region).
University can act as leader in developing of region and can be the main “catalyser“ of development for government, businesses, research institutions etc.. University forces them to be active. Of course, it is better if everyone wants to support the development and when there is a co-operation among them.
The thing we would like to emphasize and that stay in our mind after writing this work is a view on education and research that is not only boring reality. Education and research cannot exist just for themselves. Students do not have to study at the university like in some
incubator that they will leave after some years of study and go to another world – world of business. There can be co-operation and building of knowledge based community in region during the studies. We know that no every university can obtain such a big impact like one of the most known university in the world “Stanford” or in our case The University of Oxford.
Firms that started near the university have not always been big and international companies. It does not mean they cannot bring crucial advance to people and society just in region.
Moreover, where the possibility of university to impact on region has ended, there is possibility for other subjects to develop what university has started.
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