National Spin-off Day showed challenges, opportunities and inspiration from abroad
15.01. 2025
The Czech Republic is gradually improving in the area of technology transfer and spin-off companies. However, it still faces significant challenges. Bridging the gap between research and commercialisation is crucial for the development of the innovation environment in the Czech Republic. Not only the current situation in this area in the Czech Republic was the focus of the National Spin-off Day conference organised by the CzechInvest agency.
In addition to the experience of successful Czech spin-off companies, the conference, which took place in December at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC), also offered a comparison with foreign countries. Presentations by experts included, among other things, forms of support in the Czech Republic, as well as consultations with experts who answered specific questions from interested parties.
“During my studies in the 1990s, I perceived CzechInvest as an agency focused on supporting the entry of foreign investors. But times have changed. In addition to these activities, we are now trying our best to support not only Czech companies, but also start-ups. To sufficiently support spin-offs, it is crucial to create an environment that enables cooperation between institutions, personalities and political representatives. In this regard, I am pleased to have the support of personalities such as Pavel Doleček, Deputy Minister for Science, Research and Innovation. This community needs to be further developed to improve the conditions for spin-offs,” Jan Michal,Director General of the CzechInvest Agency, said at the beginning of the conference.
Opportunities to support spin-offs in the Czech Republic: responsibility also lies with academic, research and higher education institutions
In his speech, the Director General of the CzechInvest Agency also mentioned the Technology Incubation. This programme, which was presented in more detail by René Samek, Director of the Agency’s Innovation Department, focuses on systematic tailored assistance for innovative technology start-ups.
According to Jan Michal, the first university spin-off companies are applying to the Technology Incubation. However, according to the director of the agency, the total number could be higher in order for the Czech Republic to become a knowledge economy. In this context, a frequent comparison with Austria was also made, where four times more spin-off companies are created annually than in the Czech Republic.
The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) also focuses on support for Czech spin-off companies, whose activities in this area were presented at the conference by Zbyněk Růžička, Director of the Programme Management Department. A key instrument of the TA CR in this context is the SIGMA Programme, which includes sub-objectives such as support for pre-application research, involvement of early-stage researchers and balancing opportunities in applied research projects.
CzechTrade offers support to Czech companies, including spin-off companies, in entering foreign markets and developing exports. In a presentation on this topic, the conference participants were informed about the possibilities in this area, such as the development of analyses of target markets, recommendation of strategies for entering foreign markets or mediation of contacts with foreign partners and investors.
In addition to Jan Michal, the aforementioned Deputy Minister Pavel Doleček took the opening speech of the conference and reminded that scientific institutions should also contribute to creating a favourable environment for spin-offs: “The holy grail of any policy is to find the right level of intervention – who is responsible for what. There are things the government can do or try to do. However, there is a big responsibility on academic institutions, research institutes and universities to develop their own ecosystem. That is, to support entrepreneurship, which also applies to the educational part of the system, to build their cross-sectoral strategies and to seek funding within their institutional funding .”
Why is comparing the number of spin-offs with foreign countries problematic?
The first presentation was given by Ondřej Moš, director of The University Company TUL (TUC TUL), a subsidiary of the Technical University of Liberec(TUL), which focuses on knowledge transfer and commercialization of research results.
The main topic of the lecture was the general state of Czech spin-offs. In this context, TUL has created a Database of Czech Academic Spin-off Companies under the supervision of Petra Rydvalová as part of her doctoral studies, which tries to provide a comprehensive overview in this area.
The presentation offered an interesting perspective on the issue of comparing the number of Czech spin-offs with foreign spin-offs. Factors such as inconsistent definitions of spin-offs, data sets, key players or investments are at play, which make it difficult to determine the exact number of these entities, among other things.
“For example, some foreign, but also Czech universities consider as their spin-off only those companies in which they own a stake. For this reason, they do not include in their statistics spin-offs in which the university does not own any shares,” Moš said, adding that the database has its limitations for the reasons mentioned above.
Although the Czech Republic has seen a positive development in spin-off companies in the last ten years and their survival rate is high compared to foreign entities (96%), the area is still plagued by low and inefficient investment in technology transfer, education, science and research and a lack of projects, according to the director of TUC TUL.
Examples of Czech spin-off companies
Both the morning and afternoon programme offered presentations of Czech spin-off companies, in which their representatives shared their knowledge – the focus was mainly on their creation. The first presentation was given by Klára Grantz Šašková, director of the spin-off company Adalid Sciences(portal Vědavýzkum.cz informed you about Adalid Sciences in this interview). This company comes to the field of gene medicine with its own method of transporting mRNA into cells.
The company was supported by the international BTL group with an investment of hundreds of millions of crowns. At the same time, Klára Grantz Šašková presented a specific form of support from the ÚOCHB, under which Adalid Sciences was established. SWAT teams, which, according to the director of the spin-off company, “the institute finances from its own resources, in this way de facto returning them to science and enabling the creation of other promising projects”.
In the next presentation, Ladislav Dvořák, co-founder and CEO of RobotWin this successful spin-off. It focuses on easy programming of robots for tasks such as painting, grinding or polishing in three steps within one minute.
This spin-off started with the thesis of Megi Mejdrechová, who won the Werner von Siemens Prize. To successfully launch the RoboTwin spin-off, the young team of innovators used the tools offered by EIT Manufacturing, a community co-funded by the European Union.
Other presentations included the stories of spin-offs Terpenix, Tonagena and Nextdrop, which contributes to sustainable water management through data analytics and automation.
Experience from abroad: an Austrian initiative aims for 1,000 new spin-offs by 2030
The conference was also attended by international guests who shared their experiences not only from their own institutions. Erik Puura, Vice Rector for Entrepreneurship from Tallinn University of Technology, outlined key elements of his home university’s innovation ecosystem in his presentation, such as performance indicators and institutional incentive systems.
Raphael Friedl, CEO of tech2b Inkubator GmbH, focused on the possibilities of support for Austrian spin-offs in his presentation. This incubator is one of the largest startup centres in Austria, a country that is often cited as a positive example for the Czech Republic in this area.
The lecture focused in particular on the Spin-off Austria Initiative, which aims to create and sustain a thriving ecosystem for spin-offs from 2020. The initiative aims for entrepreneurship to be considered the third main task and pillar of Austrian universities – alongside teaching and research.
“The initiative aims to create a thriving spin-off ecosystem with a significant number of newly founded university spin-offs and academic startups – at least 1,000 new companies by 2030. To achieve this outcome, the initiative uses several tools. The first is the annual Spin-off Austria conference, which serves as a key event for connecting academia, entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers. Another tool is the Spin-off Austria Dashboard. This overview tool provides transparent data on the annual statistics of the Austrian spin-off ecosystem, recording the efforts of universities in this field. Last but not least, the initiative focuses on networking activities, i.e. ensuring the right incentive systems and practices for the spin-off community in cooperation with relevant stakeholders and institutions,” Raphael Friedl described one of the main objectives of the initiative and with concrete procedures.
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