EPFL has created a real ecosystem that brings together research staff, start-ups, small and medium-sized businesses and large industrial groups.
Improvement measures
Published on December 06th, 2023
The Vice-Presidency for Innovation supports EPFL and its members on their innovation mission, successfully transferring research to society with a positive impact. Such technology transfer can occur through industrial collaborations, start-ups, or patent licensing.
VPI needs to well understand the science developed in the EPFL laboratories, in order to identify key-partners to support the development of such novel technologies.
To benchmark the current situation, VPI is performing a study interviewing several professors in the School of Engineering (STI), covering different sites, Institutes, topics, seniority levels and gender, about their innovation journeys. The idea is to clearly identify their pain points, their challenges, their goals and their needs, with the aim of improving the services provided and tailoring them to the situation and interest of the laboratory.
Key indicators for this study are the number and amount of signed contracts, new industrial leads, improvement on turnover (contracts/contacts) and in general a better perception and use of the services of VPI by faculty.
Published on July 11th, 2023
In response to demand from EPFL’s partner businesses, EPFL introduced KNOVA, a new partnership programme that aims to spur innovation by building bridges between academia and the business world.