Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Commercialisation in Life Sciences. Summer school for PhD students 2010 in USA and NL

Why this Boot Camp?
Knowledge exploitation, also known in Europe as valorization, is the process of turning science and novel technologies into products, and products into (new) businesses. Learn to understand and master this process by following this intensive summer school. Science-based businesses and technology ventures are the backbone of economic growth and social development around the world. Public funding of science is increasingly judged on the expected overall benefits to society and the economy. The utilization of knowledge, or valorization, has become a major objective of many large-scale science and technology programs. Valorization comprises the societala application of knowledge through 

• commercial exploitation of scientific results (e.g. patenting)
• clinical or educational applications
• transfer of knowledge from the research institutes and universities to new or established businesses (e.g. licensing or spin-off formation).

This Entrepreneurial Boot Camp wants to create awareness of 

• new invention and its possible impact through scouting, screening and assessing
• protecting and commercially exploiting knowledge (intellectual property)

What are the course objectives?
The course will be a highly interactive, very intense (pressure cooker-like) experience in entrepreneurial learning. The education format will include analyses of cases,
exercises and assessments on specific topics, social interaction and networking. Experts will be involved and personal involvement of the participants is expected. Some of the topics are:

• Business idea creation
• Assessment of business opportunities
• Innovation, inventions and entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial attitude versus entrepreneurship
• The value of knowledge for society and the responsibility of the scientist
• Basics of entrepreneurial finance
• Intellectual property protection (in general, plant breeders’ rights, patents)
• Business concepts, business plans, financing the business

What’s in it for you?
This Entrepreneurial Boot Camp 

• helps you to use and gain tools, information and concepts about how to initiate and sustain a technology-based venture (e.g. a licensing partnership or a start-up firm)
• introduces you as a graduate student in the agro food and life sciences to the world of technology start ups 
• learns you to answer key questions if you want to leverage technologies into successful entrepreneurial ventures 
• helps you to develop as a professional who can move skillfully in both scientific and commercial worlds 
• helps you as a researcher to develop an entrepreneurial spirit, necessary to become an entrepreneurial researcher or manager, a business entrepreneur or an entrepreneurial consultant.

Each course will have a mixed group of Dutch and American PhD students (and other researchers) and a mixed group of Dutch and American teachers.