ABSTRACT
The UK and US inventive records are compared, and also the main aspects of the US and UK financial, scientific and business environments which influence success at the stages of development of university-derived invention. With the growth of interest in innovation has come a concern to locate the sources of major inventions, and to identify the factors which assist or block their development towards usefulness. Technological innovation has been demonstrated to arise from several sources. However, studies suggest that university-derived invention has been a particularly important source of innovation in western industry in twentieth century. University-derived innovation is increasingly recognised as a major source of new technology both for large companies and for small, new companies. There are three important parties to the innovation process: inventors, financiers and corporate sponsors/buyers. Appropriate expertise and finance must be available to underpin all the stages of the innovation process.
