Univ of Sask taking stronger entrepreneurial approach to tech transfer

The Univ of Saskatchewan has recruited a veteran Swedish venture capitalist to overhaul its Industry Liaison Office (ILO), re-brand it Innovation Enterprise (IE) and inject a strong industry pull into its operations. Dr Johannes Dyring is taking a more proactive approach to linking U of S knowledge and technology to companies that can take it to market by offering new services, seed financing and greater engagement with students and the business community.

“Universities are ongoing sources of knowledge and new technologies but they’re quite untapped and underutilized,” says Dyring. “ILOs are all about tech push so we’ve developed a push-pull structure and are introducing an element of being entrepreneurial—so we can spot opportunities, take risks and invest.”

Dyring joined the U of S’s ILO in October 2015 after an eight-year stint at SLU Holding AB, the tech transfer arm of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, with campuses throughout Sweden. While in Sweden he was also the founder or CEO of several start-up firms, in addition to running the business consulting firm, Dedicera AB and serving as CEO of CONNECT Eastern Sweden, a privately funded non-profit business network linking clients to relevant practical business experience and resources.

“There are about 14,000 SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) in Saskatchewan but there’s no formal relationship to the university. Innovation Place (technology park) has more than 100 high-tech companies and organization but their potential isn’t being realized,” says Dyring. “We want to get things going with seed investments and package ideas into investible form by involving industry and their expertise much earlier in the shaping process and get users involved early.”

IE has a student component that Dyring says provides a strong addition to the entrepreneurial teams he’s assembling and extends the organization’s mission to encompass social as well as economic innovation.

“(Engaging students) gives us a wider range of skill sets and we can do this through our entrepreneurial teams,” says Dyring. “We generate 300 to 400 ideas a year which is too many. It’s difficult to move on and focus on the highest potential ideas so we’ve developed a kill quickly/terminate policy.”

Another new element to IE is the use of student desktop researchers who are paid hourly to perform tasks such as accumulating business intelligence, including technology validation, market assessment, competitive analysis, business case development, business modeling and business planning.

In the near future, IE will introduce a Cofounders Club to bring entrepreneurial students from various disciplines together and find potential partners with complementary skill sets. It will also develop an Entrepreneurship Bootcamp offering workshops to educate students in the complex art of building start-up companies.

“We hope to incentivize them to build their own entrepreneurial teams and try to build companies, using the student base rather than hire professionals,” says Dyring. “We have great infrastructure and aspirations and a great leadership team and there are opportunities everywhere but we need to recognize them … The U of S campus is home to 29,000 brains and it contains a lot of entrepreneurial talent. Our approach is to encourage people to push the boundaries and be role models.”

IE will also track developments and identify opportunities in six priority areas established by the U of S to boost its profile and boost knowledge output. The signature priority areas — agriculture (food and bioproducts), energy and mineral resources, synchrotron sciences , animal-human-environment interface, water security and Aboriginal engagement and scholarship — are key to diversifying the province’s economy, particularly with the downturn in the oil and gas sector which has historically been the main contributor to economic growth in the province.

“They’re interesting areas and there’s lots to be done. It’s important to diversify the economy and make Saskatchewan a place where people and companies like to locate,” says Dyring. “At Innovation Enterprise I want to build great networks with people and institutions here, to help them realize their potential and become key players in the innovation ecosystem ... Universities have a different role now than 10 or 20 years ago. They’re vital economic and social players. Culture is most important, as is success and learning from failure.”

The U of S's ILO licensing activities generated $15 million in 2014 (the latest year for which data are available), second only to the Univ of Toronto.

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