Start-ups and Spinouts: the Fuzzy Front End and the Hard Yards…is it worth it? An InterTradeIreland specialised seminar by Brian McCaul, QUB

Start-up and spin-out companies have been feted as the drivers of economic growth: is this a fact or a myth?  Have they been over privileged in government economic policy and should we direct resources to support economic development elsewhere, especially in regions more economically challenged?

In fact, should the State butt-out of trying to influence economic growth via new company creation and support?  Does public money crowd-out private investment—should we leave entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and the market to their own devices, and stop pretending to pick winners? If not, which start-ups are worthy of support?

Or is there a way to make the hard-yards of company start-up easier and less ‘fuzzy’ and to support entrepreneurial eco-systems that can lift all boats?

This seminar is a personal reflection and confession of a Start-up Junkie [or dyed-in-the wool ‘Tech Transfer Johnny”].

Brian McCaul is the Director of Innovation at Queen’s University Belfast and CEO of Qubis Ltd.

Brian has worked in the technology transfer and innovation space for the last 23 years, both within the private and higher education sectors.  Before joining Queen’s he was a co-founder of an innovation software company based in the UK and the Netherlands, during which he established the Innovation Commons, a community of university TTOs using a shared approach and platform, to increase external entrepreneurial involvement in early-stage projects. Before that he was co-owner of an aerospace manufacturing business based in the UK and Poland.

Brian has been an advocate of collaborative, crowd and open innovation approaches to increasing tech transfer capability. He’s also been involved in three university ventures that have been successfully funded via the crowd.  His previous roles include Chair of the Association for University Research and Industry Links (AURIL) through which he’s been involved in a number of national knowledge transfer initiatives: from the inner team of Lambert to founding the Institute of Knowledge Transfer, to helping draft a range of sector guides on intellectual property strategy.