The UiO Growth House has developed several low-threshold innovation services for you who want to take your research further into new products, services, or technology. We see that there is a great need for our services. Researchers and students at the Faculty of Medicine may contact the Growth House to get help with their innovation.
Helps with development of ideas through counselling and seed funding
The Growth House has four innovation advisers who provide tailored counselling. The Growth House also provides up to NOK 200,000 in seed funds where this can help the researchers to move forward with their innovation idea.
Innovation adviser Beate Rygg Johnsen is the main contact for the Faculty of Medicine. In addition to following up researchers who contact us, she and the Growth House communications adviser have meetings with institutes, departments, and research leaders at the faculty to get input on needs and challenges related to the innovation work and tailor the follow-up of individual units accordingly.
When a researcher or student contacts the Growth House, the innovation advisers assess the maturity and degree of innovation of the idea and analyse and test the idea against plans and measures to take the idea further. They also consider if expertise in incubators, accelerators, clusters, the technology transfer office Inven2, start-up companies or established companies in the innovation ecosystem around us can be useful for the project. In addition, they assess whether the project can benefit from seed funds from us and what these funds should possibly be used for; whether they need support to seek external funding to mature the idea further; which of the Growth House meeting places, seminars and competence courses could be useful; and whether we should introduce them to the research support unit at the faculty and/or Inven2 which contributes to securing rights and license agreements.
In 2022, the Growth House received 85 requests from researchers and students, all of whom received counselling. Of these, 47 also received seed funding, of which 23 came from the Faculty of Medicine. In the first quarter of 2023, in the first quarter we had a total of 53 inquiries, of which 37 have received financial support. In 2022, the Growth House distributed NOK 3.2 million in seed funds. We will do the same in 2023, through a call for proposals and ongoing allocations. Among other things, the funds are used to assess the possible business model and the possibility of securing intellectual property rights (IPR) and regulatory strategy as well as the purchase of services, laboratory trials, preclinical trials, and application writing.
The Growth House is responsible for managing the for the application process for the innovation funder from the UiO central management, which has an application deadline of 31 August.
?So far, we have seen that it is useful to run internal value creation work where UiO's students and researchers are put in the driver's seat in interaction with the innovation ecosystem around us to put more knowledge to use.?
from innovation the director's annual summary 2022
Strengthens the culture of innovation through meeting places and courses
To strengthen the culture of innovation at UiO, the Growth House has, among other things, established the innovation hangout meeting place for academia and industry. Through inspirational talks and role models talks, researchers and students can see how others have succeeded in their own innovation work in or outside academia and/or participated in collaboration between academia and industry. In addition, they get the opportunity to build networks with companies and gain insight into how the industry works.
The Growth House runs the School of Health Innovation on behalf of UiO in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet, NTNU and the University of Copenhagen. The school is fully financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Here, young researchers get the tools and insight into how innovation can benefit patients, the health service, and our society. The school has also developed a separate course for professors and managers.
The Growth House is now developing several courses for researchers, especially PhD candidates and postdocs, based on where the innovation advisers have seen as a need for increased competence. Topics can for example be intellectual property rights (IPR) and knowledge transfer between academia and business. These courses will be launched continuously during the autumn.
In September, we organize UiO's innovation conference Science Impact 2023 in collaboration with several external and internal actors.
Provides several initiatives for students
To strengthen knowledge about innovation, we also have several initiatives for students. The Growth House supports an internship program run by the Student Association for Medical Innovation and the Student Association for Pharmaceutical Innovation. Here, students are offered summer jobs in companies where they gain insight into how companies work and can acquire new skills. The initiative is very popular, and in 2023 29 students were offered summer jobs in 18 companies. The Growth House covers half the salary for 18 who get a job in small and medium-sized companies.
Students also have access to laboratory space funded by the Growth House in ShareLab in Oslo Science. There they learn methods and skills that are requested by industry.
Contact us and use us!
Are you a researcher or student at the Faculty of Medicine with an innovation idea that you want to work on?
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