SCIS Technology Ltd and the Royal Society

The Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) has adopted a multi- and transdisciplinary approach to the study of "the individual and society", which includes high-tech disciplines such as (but not limited to) Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Genetics, Ecotechnology, and Informatics.

Three years ago, we set up SCIS Technology Ltd as a commercial venture to attract private research funding in these areas along the American model and to create income and an endowment for SCIS rather than rely on state funding. SCIS Tech offered university technology spin-outs without the bureaucratic hassle of a university – proposing to commercialize intellectual property (IP) created by doctoral candidates and young researchers that (unlink research by more senior academics) does not belong to a university.

As a pre-commercialization incubator, SCIS Tech focused on high-tech ideas and very early-stage research projects with a probable significant impact on individuals and society and expected to lead to the creation of IP and commercial ventures in the future. It set out to facilitate investment from venture capitalists, private equity firms, business angels, high net-worth individuals, corporate social responsibility programmes, and management buy-ins into ideas which at that point only existed on paper or in young innovators' minds.

We explained to potential investors that they would not be able to meet these doctoral candidates and young researchers elsewhere because they were not yet at business-plan stage and often lacked basic funding for their research. SCIS Tech would provide them with financial means at the stage at which it mattered most.

A Senior Consultant instrumental in setting up SCIS Tech was Prof John Higgins, Britain's first Professor of Biotechnology (former Leverhulme Professor, Cranfield University) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the International Institute of Biotechnology.

In early March 2008, the Royal Society – the United Kingdom's national academy of science (and different from the Royal Society of Arts) – announced an investment programme and fundraising drive markedly similar to the one we had proposed with SCIS Technology Ltd earlier. With its superior resources, the Royal Society easily overtook our efforts.

As ResearchResearch.com, under the headline "Royal Society turns to venture capitalism", reported at the time: "The Royal Society says it's going into business, for the first time in its 350-year history. The society has announced that it will create an enterprise fund to support innovation and very early stage research with potential for commercial applications. However, rather than giving money in the form of grants, the Royal Society's financial input will take the form of a commercial investment. The society plans to raise £20 million for the fund, and has already taken £3 million in contributions from several venture capitalists".

As usual, misrepresentation on part of the journalist may be involved here, but note the emphasis on "very early-stage research" that distinguishes the approaches of SCIS Tech and the Royal Society from other such projects. Business incubators and venture capitalists alike normally expect to see clear evidence of research results as well as technological feasibility studies, and ideally patents and other IP, before committing to support any idea financially.

It seems that the focus of the Royal Society may have changed since the initial announcement in a more traditional direction, too (possibly due to the addition of some people with a traditional venture capital background to the fund's governing structures). However, funders of the "Royal Society Enterprise Fund" will, differently from SCIS Tech, now not receive any return on their "investments" – which are to be considered philanthropic gifts.

Rather, it is the fund that will play the part of venture capitalist and invest (donated) monies into promising ideas, primarily in the Physical Sciences and Engineering. Down the line, any profits resulting from such ventures are to replenish the fund and become available for new investments. Unlike most scientific funding opportunities, no mention is made as to what level of their academic careers potential beneficiaries should be at.

Intriguingly, no news has been published on the fund since September 2008 (before the global financial crisis), when its capital had reached £5 million, and their website is still skeletal. Stephen Cox, Executive Secretary of the Royal Society, writes in the spring 2009 issue of Inside Science, the Royal Society's magazine, though: "The Royal Society Enterprise Fund is now officially open for business and we are looking for support, both to calibrate the quality of the opportunities presented to us and for information about potential new technology companies which need financial backing":

www.royalsociety.org/downloaddoc.asp?id=6163

I invite Mr Cox to look no further than www.scis-calibrate.org for assistance in calibrating any proposals. Certainly, the Royal Society has at its disposal means and networks we did not have. But I feel vindicated that SCIS Tech wasn't a bad idea after all, just very ambitious.

SCIS has since decided to focus its core capacities on the social- and political-theoretical aspects of new technologies and on the assessment of their likely impact on the individual and society in the twenty-first century.