Driving Business Growth with Transferable Technology

Online, June 17, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Technology transfer is increasingly important to the strengthening of national defence and economic performance, the CEO of The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory's (Dstl) spin-out, Ploughshare Innovations, has confirmed.

Against an uncertain economic backdrop and tightening global defence budgets, companies supplying the sector have had to get creative in order to drive business growth. Boosting the development of transferable technologies - which can be utilised for both defence and civil industry needs - has been one of the most successful ways of doing so.

Spearheading this trend is Ploughshare Innovations, which manages the commercial licensing of technology created by Dstl - a key Government organisation focused on S&T in the defence and security field. Dr Hotteen has explained the benefits of transferable technology for businesses, and in turn, the impact it can have on economic growth.

Ploughshare is able to transfer technology from a host of scientific disciplines - from social sciences to physics - by mirroring the range of work in Dstl. Examples include a diversity of new materials, diagnostic devices and system analysis software. Over 75 technologies are currently licensed - including trace DNA recovery technology - and 11 spin-out companies created as a result of Ploughshare's efforts.

The company plans to license the DNA technology - a new way of direct sample recovery prior to PCR - for commercial development in sectors such as law enforcement, security services, food hygiene, and safety testing - a strong example of the diversity of the transferable technology sector.

Dr Hotteen commented on the importance of the trend: "There are a whole number of things that are happening in the commercial world that are going to make technology transfer more and more important, as people look for specialist entrepreneurial technology creators to somehow be linked into the global companies that have large distribution and manufacturing capabilities.

"I think technology transfer is a very important component of the entire growth agenda, because it provides ways of capturing some of the very brilliant ideas which originate in places like Dstl or the universities and then nurtures them to the point of commercial exploitation.

"If you do this well then you have a tremendous pool for helping develop new parts of the economy, which should, with luck and hard work, underpin some really strong [economic] growth."

The full interview can be read here.