Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department is taking to protect intellectual property rights and research being conducted at Manchester University’s National Graphene Institute.

Joseph Johnson

The UK has one of the most innovative economies and the best IP environment in the world. The Intellectual Property Office offers guidance to all Universities on how to manage and protect their IP assets. In addition, the Government provides a framework and guidance on information security for organisations including universities. Universities are independent and autonomous institutions and it is a matter for individual institutions to determine how they apply guidance.

Government wants to increase university income from collaboration and commercialisation to £5bn by 2025. The University of Manchester is one of the world’s most successful universities in this respect, working with over 40 partners at the forefront of the graphene revolution.