IP2IPO Group, which specialises in commercialising university technology, has made an exclusive 25-year deal with the University of Bristol to form spin-out companies from the university. Analysts greeted the deal as a boost for the company.

Microsoft is to open more research centres in Europe, in a move to step up its research collaboration and boost students' interest in the technology field.

"Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success." Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931).

A new Munich-based company that says its patented technologies can reduce household water consumption by 90 per cent on average is looking for more investment.

A British pharmaceutical distributor, Beckpharma Ltd., said it licensed two Cuban healthcare products to sell in Europe as part of a broader effort for trade links.

On the glut of patenting, BASF's rising research budget, football fever in the Commons, and other insights into R&D management

Some strange new ways of raising money are starting to emerge - but would-be borrowers and lenders are still making sense of them.

New regulations on the registration and testing of chemicals could have some problematic knock-on effects on European R&D – but they could also bring some lucrative work the way of contract research organisations.