Paolo FerraginaProrettoreRicerca Applicata e Innovazione

Research and teaching are THE duties of every Italian faculty.

The so called “third mission” (≈ research valorization) is mainly perceived as a duty of University as a whole!

This is also the “mood” of our PhD students, who more and more often associate their research activity with some teaching support, but not look seriously to their “third mission”.

A PERSONAL CONSIDERATION

TTO

Faculty Departments

Some TT services (mainly about IP)

Spin-off Committee

Patent Committee

HOW IT WAS IN 2010It was mainly a

sort of certification authority !

Europe 2020 Strategy, Lisbon 2010

Entrepreneurship2020 Action Plan, 2013

IN 2010, WE INTRODUCED

whose main goal was to spread the entrepreneurial mindset in PhDs and postdocs

Research valorization

New ventures creation

via a light and optional series of seminars + training activities, for exposing our young researchers to basic skills and tools for:

Career empowering

THE 2015 EDITION 12 seminars in 6 weeks

18 speakers (worldwide)

100 Phd/students enrolled

MBA UniPIstartupper

>500

participants (Phds, post-docs, master students, researchers,…)

19Start-ups

26business projects

11university spin-offs

37award

s

530k€total sales

2013

SOME FIGURES

AN INTERESTING SYNERGY

PhD Office

Career Servic

e

TechTransf

Office

Got few National and EU grants

for about 800k€

ENTERING THE EU ECO-SYSTEM

96/100Top-1 in Erasmus+Kw-Alliance call[Partners: DK and UK]

Two main goals:

• Industrial networking

• EU mobility of start

ups

TTO

SUPPORT

StudentsPhDsFaculty

Departments

Labs

TT Services (IP and BP and law issues)Spin-off CommitteePatent Committee

InvestorsTuscan Innovation DistrictsInternational PartnershipsNetworking support

UNIPI - HOW IT IS NOWnew rules

for our Spin-

offs

Coaching & MentoringPrototyping & TestingHackathons & Innovation Days

MBA

Our results about spin-offs

• From 11° to 4°rank according to Netval

• 19 spin-offs (last 4 years), 23 spin-offs (prev 8 years)

• 49% founders are students in start-ups (prev 25%)

• 34% founders are women in start-ups (23% overall)

UNIPI IS NOW AN ECO-SYSTEM

Our goal is offering more and more opportunities to PhDs and faculties for their research valorization !!

What’s next ?- «Fiducia» on Italian Research [3° World, Elsevier/UK gov]- More attention to PhD students [initiative iTalents CRUI/MIUR]- A network of mentors to shape their young business (ie. «give

back») - An (inter-)national platform of exchanges (Erasmus for

«innovators»)

Website: http://www.unipi.it/phdplus

E-mail: phdplus@adm.unipi.it

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

PhD+ Unipi Unipi PhD-Plus(> 800

members)

@PhDPlus

Elsevier for the UK government (2014)

How much productive we are ?

Elsevier for the UK government (2014)

How much effective are our publications?#citations article/#avg citations