As a pioneering university in scientific production and knowledge transfer, the Universitat de Barcelona (UB, University of Barcelona) has set up the Agency for Valorisation and Commercialisation of Research Results (AVCRI). This agency seeks to promote new strategies to coordinate and boost knowledge and technology transfer and, in particular, stimulate the creation of added value in chains of knowledge production. In this regard, AVCRI is responsible for the strategic and operative management of valorisation and commercialisation of results derived from research activities and seeks to ensure that new knowledge and technologies developed by members of the Grup UB reach society, particularly the business sector, in the form of innovation.

Managed by José María Palacios, AVCRI supervises the transfer process, which involves several agents operating in the innovation system and comprising the Grup UB, such as the Patents Centre, the Innovation Centre of the Fundació Bosch i Gimpera, the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB, Barcelona Science Park) and the Scientific and Technical Services. This agency draws up collaboration agreements with the IDIBAPS and IDIBELL foundations. AVCRI has a management committee to provide assessment and assistance in defining, coordinating and realising its programme of activities.

During the distinct stages of transfer, the agency provides Grup UB researchers with consultancy and commercial management services for research activities. Specifically, AVCRI supervises the process from the identification and definition of a project to its later corresponding valorisation. Once these stages have been passed, AVCRI, in coordination with other agents involved in the innovation system of the Grup UB, promotes the protection of these research results and their posterior transfer through commercialisation by means of licenses, research contracts and clinical assays or the development of enterprises.

In addition, AVCRI manages the recently launched knowledge and technology Transfer Portal of the UB. This web portal seeks to promote activities performed in this field by members of the Grup UB.

José María Palacios (born 1948, Logroño) holds a Phd in Chemistry from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. As a researcher, he has published many articles in scientific journals and is one of the most cited scientists in the fields of neuroscience and pharmacology, according to the ISI database. Palacios has worked in the Neurology Unit of INSERM, in París, and in the departments of Pharmacology and Neurosciences at John Hopkins University Faculty of Medicine. Palacios has extensive R+D experience in the pharmaceutical industry, having headed the preclinical research group on the central nervous system with Sandoz (now Novartis), in Basilea for 10 years. For 14 years, he was director of R+D at Almirall (later Almirall Prodesfarma), in addition to serving on the Management Committee and the Administrative Council of the same.

To contact AVCRI: avcri@pcb.ub.es