NOTES
2.3 POLICIES TO FOSTER THE CREATION OF ACADEMIC SPIN-OFFS IN THE UK AND
2.3.2 France
UCF while additional funding was provided by the Wellcome Trust (27 million euros) and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation (3 million euros). In October 2001, the second round, a further 27.5 million euros was awarded.2 This total funding of 90 million euros was apportioned to 15 successful bids in the first round, and a further five in the second (one fund got first and second round money). Nineteen different UCFs are in operation across the UK. These funds are associated with different universities (involving between two and six universities or research institutions), except Imperial College and Oxford University. Universities were required to contribute a minimum of 25 per cent of total fund value. The maximum total invest- ment in any one project was restricted to 375000 euros.
therefore, allows the public sector (university or research laboratory) to pay the salary of the creator of the company during the start-up phase. The law also prevents those who are involved in starting up companies from being penalized in terms of their research careers. A contract defines the links between the company and the research establishment whose work is being exploited. Research staffcan provide their scientific support for a company that develops their research work, while they remain in the public sector. The law also allows a research employee to contribute to the capital of a company that commercializes his/her research work. His share could ini- tially be up to 15 per cent of the capital of the company, although in March 2006 this percentage was raised to 49 per cent. The employee agrees, in return, not to take part in any negotiations between the university or research laboratory and the spin-off company. Researchers and teacher- researchers can be members of the management of a company but they cannot be the chief executive officer or the chief operating officer of the firm nor be a member of the board. The request must be submitted to the author- ity (organization, university, and so on) responsible for the research staff. The authority must then notify, for approval, the National Public Sector Ethics Committee (Commission Nationale de Déontologie). This commit- tee can (or not) enable the academics to take part in a new firm project according to the three cases below. The goal of this committee is to avoid conflicts of interest, which can easily occur in the commercial exploitation of public research results or in the spinning off of activities from public research results, and to guarantee the interest of the public side in these commercialization activities of public research results.
Business training for academics
In recent years, the French Ministry for Research has supported actions aimed at raising awareness and providing entrepreneurship training for young people. In 2001, an Observatory of Teaching Practices in Entrepreneurship (OPPE) was created by the Ministry for Research, the Ministry of Industry, the Agence Pour la Création d’Entreprises (APCE) and the Académie de l’Entrepreneuriat (an association of academics working in the field of entrepreneurship). This Observatory has three main objectives: to carry out an inventory of actions relating to the teaching of entrepreneurship in various establishments, to diffuse this knowledge, methods and practices, and to evaluate the effects of the training pro- grammes in the field of entrepreneurship and to carry out specific studies on related topics. In 2004, Maisons de l’Entrepreneuriat were created in six universities and higher teaching institutions. These establishments are encouraged to enforce the links with companies, to lay down specific poli- cies to develop entrepreneurship, and to establish publicity campaigns
about entrepreneurship for students, researchers and academics. The Maisons provide courses, entrepreneurship clubs for students, a resource centre, business plan competitions, entrepreneurial forums and guides for the student entrepreneur, and develop partnerships with local economic actors and involve the latter in the projects. They have integrated different national or international networks on the topic of entrepreneurship.
Incubators and support structures for projects
The first ‘National competition for the creation of technologically innova- tive firms’, was launched in 1999. The competition is open to people residing in France or in a member state of the European Community, as well as to French people residing abroad whose project fits the requirements. In 2005, the seventh of these competitions will have a total budget of 30 million euros provided by the ministry in charge of Research (18 million euros) with the support of the European Social Fund (7 million euros) and of ANVAR (the French Agency of Innovation) (5 million euros). The categories of the com- petition make it possible for people either to validate a project at the idea stage or to make the idea more concrete by creating a company.
The French Innovation Act allowed higher educational and research establishments to set up incubators for the purpose of providing premises, equipment and material for those hoping to create companies or for young companies. This measure encourages in particular, the creation of high- technology companies by research staffand students. The Research Ministry, with the support of the European Social Fund, subsidizes these incubators for a three-year period and covers 50 per cent of their expenditure. The remaining 50 per cent is financed by local and regional authorities.
A call for tender, initiated in 1999 and renewed in 2000, aimed to encour- age the implementation of new structures for incubation, coming in par- ticular, but not only, from higher education establishments or research. The scheme’s main preference was to provide support for new projects set up in partnership. A company incubator is defined as a place hosting and assist- ing holders of innovative firm start-up projects. It offers them support in training, consultancy and financing, and accommodation until they join a technology park, and can support the cost of industrial premises.
Pre-seed capital funds and stimulation of funding for USOs
In France, one of the characteristics of seed capital funds is to combine public and private funding. Five national funds, dedicated to biotechnol- ogy and information and communication technologies, and six regional funds were created in 1999. The seed capital funds provide finance at the first stage of funding. Higher education and research institutions participate in most of these funds, along with investors from the public
sector (primarily CDC Enterprises) and from the private sector (mainly investment capital firms).4These new structures bring together the local actors of the technology transfer offices, research centres and universities to facilitate close links between the investors and their laboratories. As investors, the managers of these funds form a close relationship with the company’s founders.
A chain of measures from idea to market The government support mea- sures described above are based on the objective of creating an integrated process of developing spin-offs that will both increase the number of spin- offs created from the public research sector and enable them to generate sustainable growth. This results in the following process: public researchers who want to transfer their research results by creating a company ask for an authorization from the public ethics committee; they then present a file to the national competition where the best projects are identified and grants awarded; these best projects are then hosted in public incubators; once they have developed they are financed by seed money funds; and finally, the best projects are selected for venture capital investments.