Via Tech Transfer E-News comes information from Science Business that the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) plans to bring industrial expertise directly into research departments through a system of Industrial Impact Fellowships. Initial funding of £2 million will be used to bring professionals from industry to work in BBSRC-funded projects in order to support the translation of academic research into industrial reality. The potential value of the scheme is said to be its ability to enhance university knowledge transfer activity by having an Industrial Impact Fellow sitting within a research group and really immersing himself in its ongoing work, then offering the group a set of entrepreneurial skills that might not otherwise be available to it.
