Embedded Companies

A company is generally judged to be embedded in the Department when:

  • it occupies defined areas of office and laboratory space;
  • the company employees no longer visit the Department for a few days each month, but come to work in the Department every day;
  • a proportion of the research conducted by the company employees in the Department is no longer truly collaborative and the company’s academic hosts have little input.

Embedded Company status becomes unambiguous, if the company’s space is secured with locks, it becomes the normal place of work for a number of the company’s employees, and a significant proportion of the work they do is not collaborative.

Department priorities for hosting different types of Embedded Company

There are three types of Embedded Company:

  • Proximate Companies, which hire space from the Department for the use of their employees but do not have a significant relationship with the Department beyond being a tenant;
  • Co-located Companies, which place their employees in the Department for periods measured in years to work with academics on research programmes;
  • Spin-off Companies, which arise from research in the Department and are starting to grow in the Department often with a variety of student and academic interests.

It is difficult to imagine a good case for hosting a Proximate Company in the Department given our space constraints. There might a few good cases for hosting Co-located Companies providing the academic benefits of doing so are extremely clear. In contrast, we should try to accommodate our Spin-off Companies when appropriate, because entrepreneurship is encouraged in the Department. However, Spin-off Companies should leave the Department for new premises or be placed on a firm Co-located Company footing within one year of their creation.

Basic rules for Embedded Companies

The following rules apply:

  • no one can host a company in the Department without permission;
  • the process for obtaining permission starts by submitting a case to the Director of Research and Finance;
  • staff must declare any interests in the company before seeking permission to host the company;
  • hosting the company must help the Department to achieve its academic aims and this needs to be demonstrated by an appropriate member of the established academic staff, who does not have any financial interests in the company, being willing to act as the Host;
  • the Host must be officially appointed by the relevant Head of Division with the agreement of the Director of Research and Finance and he/she must take responsibility for checking on a monthly basis that:

o the relevant health and safety procedures are followed

o intellectual property is managed in line with the agreement

o staff, students and company employees declare their interests in discussions with other staff, students, or sponsors, where there is any risk whatsoever of a conflict of interests arising

o space, experiments, equipment, materials, notebooks, etc. used by and/or owned by the company must be clearly labelled and logged

o materials and equipment are not moved off site by the company without checking ownership

o all company staff who are to work on site are registered as visitors and sign visitor agreements following the standard process, which starts with the Host presenting the case for each visitor to the Research and Finance Office

o the company does not use the Department’s address as its official business address nor engage in any trading on site

o JANET, the Department’s servers, its computers, telephones, etc. are not used to store, transport or process any business data

o production runs are not made using Department facilities.

  • the company must sign an agreement produced by the Research Operations Office (ROO) governing liabilities, confidentiality, intellectual property, payments, etc;
  • the company must pay the full costs for space, access to facilities, and company-sponsored collaborative research.