Are software developers the key to unlocking university intellectual property? UK Universities have an international reputation for cutting edge research.

Much of this research develops intellectual property and, as an increasing number of successful spin-outs show, there are viable commercial opportunities to be had.

There is a strong case to be made for collaboration between universities and private enterprise in working to unlock this potential.

Over the past four years we have formed productive relationships with a number of academics and universities that are resulting in commercially available software products.

In 2007 White October was introduced to Professor Julie Barnett, a social psychologist at the University of Surrey.

Her idea was for a new method of online research — and she wanted to know how difficult it would be to develop.

Later that year, the Wellcome Trust funded a feasibility study into the method, which provided a small amount of money with which to create and test a working prototype.

While the sums involved were small, the impact of the Wellcome Trust grant was key in allowing the collaboration to take place.

With a successful project under their belts, the University of Surrey team began looking for further funding.

The opportunity came in the form of a European Commission FP7 funded research project working with 14 institutions across Europe, which gave us the chance to develop and test a production-ready version of the tool.

We built marketing sites, worked up business models and began commercial conversations with project partners and potential customers.

They actively worked with Brunel University’s commercialisation department to find routes to market, and went over and above their funded commitments because they could see a product emerging. Half way through the project, and the software had been licensed commercially for the first time.

Success bred further opportunities. With eyes open to the potential of a software partner, Prof Barnett, now at Brunel University, was able to spot opportunities to bring White October in as partners on more projects and in new areas such as obesity and public health.

One example was a European project researching the relationship between dieticians and their patients.

MyPace is a mobile app that connects patients with their dieticians between appointments. Once installed on the patient’s mobile phone, it is used to monitor weight and mood, records daily "small steps" and pushes motivational messages from the dietician to the patient.

The tool creates a ‘contract’ between patient and dietician, provides support to the patient between appointments and feeds data to the dietician to use in consultations.

The research was carried out across five European countries and a working prototype has been developed. It goes into trials in 2013.

What these examples have in common is that they begin as grant funded research projects with a software development company as a project partner.

Many funders, such as FP7, have objectives to include commercial partners with a view to the exploitation of the research outputs and so involvement often strengthens bids.

The grants essentially substitute early stage seed funding, and give the partners the opportunity to explore and validate ideas.

In other projects we have collaborated with universities in a more typical client-agency relationship, as is the case with Spoonful of Sugar, a spin-out from University College London working in the field of behavioural medicine and medicines adherence across long-term conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or diabetes.

The company was commercialising intellectual property created by Professor Rob Horne. But having begun to work together and build each others’ trust, the potential of the new relationship became evident, with its combination of intellectual property, domain expertise, technical know-how and ability to deliver.

The opportunities are just not in the fields of web and software development but right across the whole UK science and technology market and beyond and do not always require large financial investment to start.

Our experience suggests that when academics sit down with companies like ours and work creatively, amazing things happen and spin-outs are born.

Here in Oxfordshire we are perfectly placed to capitalise on these opportunities and would like to see more support given to match-make and nurture these types of relationship for long enough to allow them to become meaningful.

We would love to see more small scale funding for research projects with this objective at its heart.

Dave Fletcher, White October