Invention evaluation

Once we have received your initial enquiry, a member of the Commercialisation team will be allocated to assess the opportunity.

The complexity of this process can vary, but it usually starts with an informal meeting between the academics involved and a member of our Pipeline Opportunities team.

The information we aim to gather during this meeting includes:

• Due diligence
  • Following an initial discussion, we need to perform due diligence to ensure that the University of Leeds has the freedom to exploit the IP
  • In order to do this, we need to examine the contracts for the funding behind the research results
• Technology Readiness Level (TRL)
  • Research is presented to the Commercialisation team at various stages of development - from fundamental research to well established research resulting from several years’ work
  • Deciding where the research sits in terms of its TRL helps us determine the next steps
  • For example, we have access to funding for establishing a proof of concept or proof of market to advance a technology to the next TRL
• Commercial viability
  • We will carefully analyse your research to assess the prospects of obtaining appropriate IP protection and the potential market