About us

UC Business is the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) of the University of Coimbra (Portugal).

UC Business

Through the transfer of a wide range of knowledge to the benefit of Society, the mission of UC Business is to transform UC into an essential partner to the business sector, carrying out joint projects with different business structures (start-ups, spin-offs, SMEs, large companies and associations), within the multiple areas of knowledge of the University of Coimbra.

UC Business organizes its action in three pillars:

  • Valuing the different assets of the University of Coimbra, materials and immaterials, such as the knowledge of researchers, students and technologies.
  • Commitment to innovation in the medium and long term, strategically enhancing and enhancing the University of Coimbra.
  • Development of solid and sustainable partnerships, which reinforce the operation capacity and presence in strategic sectors at national and international level.

Numbers

Cumulative data from 2019 to the 1st quarter of 2023.

Competencies


It is the responsibility of UC Business:

  • Evaluate technologies resulting from R&D with potential for innovation and/or commercialization;
  • Develop commercial knowledge enhancement strategies, identifying partners;
  • Monitoring all phases of the licensing process for the developed technologies;
  • Ensure the management of Industrial Property;
  • Manage partnerships in the field of innovation and support the creation of university spin-offs;
  • Encourage the conduct of joint projects between the University and external entities;
  • Support, monitor partnerships and carry out activities, in conjunction with the Interdisciplinary Research Institute;
  • Manage the University's participation in international networks of Innovation and Knowledge Transfer;
  • Research, identify and disseminate community support, or others, which can be applied to the University's development projects;
  • Disclose the conditions for accessing scholarships, courses, programs and R&D projects;
  • Manage the Provision of Specialized Services;
  • Manage the Technology and Service Platforms.


UC Business thus establishes the University-Industry synergy by intervening and mediating in accordance with the Entity Cycle, which needs a certain technology in a certain space-time, and with the Researcher Cycle, willing to work towards the transfer of knowledge to satisfy those needs.

Added to this knowledge are the practices and soft skills, immaterial, immeasurable and intangible assets of the managers of the various UC Business work cores, always willing to open and immediate dialogue.


CONTACT US

Examples

Surveillance and Technological Enhancement

Did you know that UC Business guarantees training in Active Technological Surveillance, which enables all knowledge agents to identify methodologies or project results that could be economically valued? We also guarantee the valorization of duly protected technologies developed at UC with external national and international entities.

Forming Consortia

Did you know that UC researchers can collaborate with companies or organizations by creating a consortium, with different partners, to develop a new product / service or to solve a specific challenge for an industry / society?

External Partnerships

Did you know that your company can collaborate with the University of Coimbra and its researchers by providing specialized services?

Brochure

“The UC and the Transfer of Knowledge and Technology in Historical Context”

The booklet factually describes the formalization of the first Technology Transfer Office (TTO) in Higher Education, exploring the umbilical link between UC and Intellectual Property through the Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN). By arranging the sources and preserving the facts, the impact of the initiatives created and organized by the UC’s TTO, over the last 20 years, is described. In a second plan, it provides a historical analysis of TTOs, in Portugal, supported by the organic evolution in the UC and examples of success, framing scientifically the Special Project UC Business.