Strengthening innovation pathways in universities

When promising ventures stall inside a university, it’s rarely for lack of talent or ambition. More often, they get lost in the handoff between teams, processes, or priorities.

That was the message Will Charles, UniService’s Executive Director of Investment, and I shared at the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centres (GCEC) 2025 Conference, held in Calgary from 2–4 October. GCEC is the world’s leading annual gathering of university-based entrepreneurship centres. More than 700 centre leaders from across the globe came together to exchange ideas and showcase models that work.

Our session, From Friction to Fit: Helping Entrepreneurship Centres and Tech Transfer Offices Work Together, explored how Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, has developed a coordinated approach to supporting founders. By collaborating closely, the Business School’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) and UniServices, the University’s technology transfer and investment subsidiary, have created an integrated pipeline that connects entrepreneurial learning, venture development, and commercialisation.

Where friction emerges

Many universities have both an entrepreneurship centre and a technology transfer office (TTO), but these units often operate on different logics. Entrepreneurship centres typically prioritise access and capability-building. TTOs, by design, are geared toward IP protection, investor readiness, and institutional risk. Both serve the innovation mission, but without alignment, ventures can fall between the cracks. 

To set the stage, we opened our session with a poll, asking How strong is the relationship between your centre and your TTO? Among 39 responses, the average rating was 3.5 out of 5, suggesting many see potential, but few would call their current setup ideal. 

Next, we asked: What single factor most influences that relationship? The resulting word cloud placed communication at its centre, surrounded by terms like shared goals, relationships, funding, alignment, leadership, culture, and metrics. The takeaway: structure matters, but culture and clarity matter more. 

A case in point: Alimetry

To ground the discussion, we shared the story of Alimetry, a spin-out from the Auckland Bioengineering Institute. Its flagship product, Gastric Alimetry, is a wearable, high-resolution diagnostic device that non-invasively maps stomach activity, offering a breakthrough for clinicians treating chronic gut disorders.

The founders’ journey began with CIE’s Velocity $100k Challenge, where they learned to pitch, plan, and navigate entrepreneurship. Through CIE, they gained early mentorship, peer networks, and the entrepreneurial mindset needed to move forward.

From there, UniServices provided commercialisation support: protecting IP, helping to validate the business model, introducing investors via Return on Science, and co-investing through the Inventors’ Fund. Alimetry’s NZ$16 million Series A was a key milestone, achieved through this joint support.

Rather than a handoff, this was a collaborative progression spanning founder capability development, venture development, and capital readiness.

Designing for resilience and inclusivity

From this and other experiences, we developed six design principles to help universities strengthen collaboration across internal boundaries: Design for overlap, not just handoff; Start with the founder's needs, not internal roles; Decouple ownership from control; Build mutual visibility; Create joint feedback loops; and Align around shared strategy and governance.

We launched our From Friction to Fit Innovation Toolkit to help institutions use these principles to map their own systems, identify gaps, and build resilient pathways for venture creation.

What success looks like

Resilience and inclusivity were recurring themes at GCEC, and they were central to our message.

When university systems are well-aligned, founders spend less time navigating and more time building. Inclusive systems reduce friction, increase opportunity, and help promising ideas survive the journey. We closed the session with the observation that “Success is not only the ventures we create; it’s also the ventures we don’t lose in the corridors between organisations.”