Scottish universities lead UK in spinout creation

While overall, universities are creating fewer start up companies, the ones they do have are becoming more sucessful.
The University of Edinburgh came in at the top for Scottish universitiesThe University of Edinburgh came in at the top for Scottish universities
The University of Edinburgh came in at the top for Scottish universities

A spinout company is one which is formed to exploit university owned property. One such company was University of Edinburgh’s Reactec, which started out as a vibration engineering consultancy firm and spun off into its own successful company.

The Spinouts UK database was compiled by Young Company Finance and shows that Scotland has the highest number of active regional spinouts.

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The report said, “The gap between Scotland and the next two regions - London and the South East - has narrowed slightly with Scotland one percentage point down on last year and the other two regions each one percentage point up. With a relatively large established base of spinout companies, it would take big changes in the number of spinouts created, or exists from the group, to make a relative difference in the positions of these regions.”

The University of Edinburgh is the number two university to produce spinout companies across the UK. It currently has 35 active spinout companies, 15 of which were created in the last four years.

Strathclyde came in at number seven, Heriot-Watt came in at number 12, Aberdeen at 14 and Glasgow rounding out the top 20.