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The new Oxford technology institute funded by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison will invest at least £100mn in joint ventures with the university in an effort to improve the UK’s poor record on commercialising scientific discoveries.
The initiative aims to back at least 10 projects focused on “particularly challenging global problems”, with the prospect of further investment should they show promise, said Professor Sir John Bell, president of the Ellison Institute of Technology Oxford.
The announcement on Tuesday comes as the government strives to better harness technological innovation to boost economic growth, after a history of start-ups relocating overseas to access greater capital and better business environments.
“Our idea is that probably the best way to make sustainable solutions to these big problems is to think in commercial terms about them as soon as you possibly can,” Bell said. “Then hopefully that allows you to scale.”
The tie-up will involve an initial investment of at least £100mn in joint research programmes by the Ellison Institute, which will lead on developing and exploiting the intellectual property rights for discoveries made. The institute would be able to further “build companies” that were doing well because Ellison’s commitment meant it would not be reliant on outside investors, Bell said.
Ellison said the Oxford partnership was at the heart of EIT’s mission to have a global impact by “fundamentally reimagining the way science and technology translate into end-to-end solutions for humanity’s most challenging problems”.
The institute is due to open its £1bn-plus Oxford campus fully in 2027, including 30,000 square metres of research laboratories, supercomputing facilities, and an oncology and preventive care clinic.
Its four “humane endeavour” priorities are health and medical science, climate change and green energy, food security and sustainable agriculture, and government innovation in the age of artificial intelligence.
Science minister Lord Patrick Vallance has repeatedly highlighted the problems the UK has had with turning ideas from its universities and start-ups into internationally competitive big companies.
He said the Ellison-Oxford tie up “means delivering world-class research for the global good”.
Vallance added: “It is a recognition of the outstanding science base in Oxford and the UK more broadly and provides innovators with the opportunity and facilities to develop solutions for some of the biggest challenges facing the world.”
The government has announced it will set up a Regulatory Innovation Office in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to help speed up approvals for new technologies such as autonomous vehicles.
Under the Oxford deal, the Ellison Institute will put an additional £30mn into a joint centre for doctoral training in the fundamentals of AI, based in the university’s mathematical, physical and life sciences division.
It will offer scholarships for at least 100 undergraduate and postgraduate students from around the world over the next five years, with applications opening this month.
Irene Tracey, Oxford’s vice-chancellor and a professor of anaesthetic neuroscience, welcomed the partnership with EIT as a “unique opportunity to bring together great minds to address humanity’s most pressing challenges”.