Looking back at Business Research Forum 2023
On Wednesday 26 April we organized the fifth Business Research Forum of Masaryk University. The University present itself as a modern institution ready to develop partnership cooperation beyond the academic world.
The event also included the awarding of certificates to MU spin-off companies, the presentation of successful projects from the Start Your Business competition and the awarding of innovative ideas through the MUNI Innovation Award.
The Business Research Forum is held every two years, traditionally organised by our MU Technology Transfer Office. "We can and want to transfer knowledge," said MU Rector Martin Bareš at the opening ceremony. According to him, the university has a lot to offer to the commercial sector also thanks to the diversity in the focus of faculties and university departments covering natural and medical disciplines as well as various social science sectors. He added that MU is "a university with a heart and a brain and has no borders on this earth or beyond", thus recalling space research, which was also pointed out by TTO director Eva Janouškovcová as an example of cooperation between the academic and commercial spheres.
In practice, this connection is expressed by spin-off companies that develop university intellectual property into marketable products or services. So far, 22 of them have been created and 13 of them are currently active. They are involved, for example, in the production of various measuring instruments, software, drug development or language learning applications. "We are an open university and very well prepared for cooperation," said Martin Kvizda, MU Vice-Rector for External Relations and Lifelong Learning.
Throughout the day, individual MU faculties and departments offered opportunities for cooperation with companies. According to Pavel Minařík, vice president of the technology company Progress, there is a growing understanding in both the university and commercial sectors of the usefulness of mutual cooperation, which enables companies to innovate and researchers to put research results into practice. But expectations need to be set correctly. "Companies don't get a finished product in return, and researchers don't get money without real results," he noted. He also turned to the students, "You have the choice to start working somewhere corporate or try to start something of your own," he said as one of the supporters of the current third edition of the Start Your Business competition, which provides financial support and mentoring to enterprising students to take their ideas to a working business.
