The final year for any PhD student is filled with pressures, `How do I finish my book on time and will it be accepted?' and `How can I share my knowledge, about a specific topic, with the outside world?' A far more looming question is, `How am I going to earn money?' As Potic says, `we have to still eat, even after receiving our PhDs.'
The program, Business Accelerator-Smart Devices and Materials, which is connected to the IMPACT institute, will offer last year PhD students substantial funds to support business development activities. Funding will subsidise the process of starting a new company, which can include: creating marketing and feasibility studies, hiring experts to make a business plan and assisting with the process of patent filing. The main financing bodies for this initiative are the province of Overijssel, the municipality of Enschede, MVT (regional industrial network) and the University of Twente. Potic says, `we are here to help you to start your business and what we hope to get back is your success.' She emphasised that the `financial support for the program is not considered a loan and will not require any involvement of the financiers in the created company.'
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| Biba Potic, IMPACT program manager, shares possibilities for last year PhD students at P-Nut lunch discussion. |
This innovative program evolved out of the desire to promote business growth in the province of Overijssel and keep young talent in the region. Government and local businesses wanted to encourage PhD students to start a business in the region, which is filled with SME's (small and medium enterprises). Potic said, `if you look for a job, your chances of advancements within the structure of SME's are far greater than in a big company located in the west of the Netherlands.'
A lively debate ensued at the close of the luncheon about the role of the professor, knowledge sharing within an academic group and the separation between the business activities of students within the framework of their contract with the UT.
Potic believes the professor plays a pivotal role in the whole process, she said `your best source of knowledge is your professor and your group. It is also beneficial for the group to have an attached company through which all commercial contacts can smoothly operate. Companies are willing to speak to spin-off groups, whereas, when you collect together a group of PhD students, companies begin to worry about confidentiality concerns and the sharing of knowledge.'
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| PhD students at the Faculty Club enjoying a light moment. Photo: Frans van der Veeken |
International student Ivan Vera from Venezuela had this to say, `the luncheon was good to gain knowledge from all the students coming from different disciplines.' He asked Potic, `does the financing for your program, which is funded by the government, have any limitations for non-Dutch nationals?' Potic said, `No. Foreigners can apply for the funding as well as Dutch citizens.' Yet she later suggested that it helps foreigners if they try to learn the Dutch language.
Foreign PhD students are allowed to get their working permit after three years, which means that they are not officially linked in a business sense to the UT. Closing her short presentation, Potic said, `Eighty percent of spin-off companies that start at the university are successful.' Her main goal is to translate innovative technologies into new business opportunities: making future business roadmaps for the PhD student that wants to start-up their own company.
For more information: [email protected]. or contact the IMPACT institute.
