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Academics must share the blame for Britain’s poor record in exploiting
ideas commercially, said Peter Lilley, the Secretary of State for Trade
and Industry, last week. ‘Our universities and colleges tend to underrate
the commercial significance of their work,’ he said. ‘They do not always
recognise that the discipline of solving practical problems within a commercial
timescale, and within an agreed budget, is itself an exciting intellectual
challenge. Some academics simply regard the whole question of the commercial
potential of their ideas as none of their business.’

But Donald Crawford of Product Register, a company which helps to bring
new products to market, said that the problem was a gap in communication
and culture between academics and industry. ‘Academics have to feel understood
and not exploited, and then they have a lot to give,’ he said. ‘These people
are not silly, even if they are not commercially minded. There is a need
for government, universities, inventors, investors and manufacturers to
have a much closer understanding.’