Outline Proposal - Oxford Brookes University

Request 69009 Page 8 of 11
Privacy and Intellectual Property are managed centrally by Oxford Brookes University via
RBDO (Research and Business Development Office).
As for organizations with expertise in the surveillance systems, the group has links with
HMGCC (http://www.hmgcc.gov.uk/), the UK government centre of excellence whose
aim is to design and develop secure communication systems, hardware and software
specifically for HM Government use, both at home and overseas.
Proposed Budget and Conditions
Preferred style of collaboration and proposed conditions
For Phase 1 (validation) we believe the best strategy is to hire a Research Assistant for 1-2 years,
which will work full time on the project to complete all the steps (1-4) of the algorithm (in
collaboration with our Ph.D. student Michael Sapienza), and tune it towards the actions/activities
specified by the client and the smart home scenario. In this perspective it makes sense to explore
range camera technologies, as we are doing in the medical monitoring application (see below).
The naked cost of a member of staff is 10,000-14000 pounds a year for an RA (postgraduate
student), 27-30,000 pounds for a postdoctoral researcher. Indirect costs need to be added for about
150% of the naked cost.
Equipment is already in possession of the group in terms of computer clusters, range and
traditional cameras, but possibly a few thousand pounds will be needed in this sense.
For Phase 2 (commercialization) the most suitable scheme is probably that of a Knowledge Transfer
Partnership (KTP), on which the groups and Oxford Brookes in general have a strong background.
A KTP typically lasts for 2 years: each Associate has a total cost of some 75,000 pounds a year (of
which 75% funded by the UK government, only 25% in charge of the industrial partner) – one or two
Associates can be requested depending on the scale and complexity of the project.
Status of Intellectual Property of proposed technology and the organizational policy regarding technology
transfer, licencing, etc.
At the present time the technology is being developed as a research project, so as such it has
not been patented yet, though we plan to proceed in that direction given the very encouraging
performances.
Intellectual Property are managed centrally by Oxford Brookes University via RBDO (Research
and Business Development Office) which has access to financial and other resources to
enable Intellectual Property and its commercial exploitation to be effectively managed, whilst
maximising the widespread dissemination of the research results. This includes finance for
patenting and proof of concept funding; Intellectual Property, technology and market
assessment; resources for defining and implementing a commercialisation strategy though
licensing, start-up company or other routes.
RBDO has a strong track record of commercialisation of its intellectual property. Income from
licences was £1.5M in 2011 and this ranks the University in the top 10 in the UK of all
universities for royalty income. OBU through RBDO holds a total portfolio of 20 patents. The
University also supports the creation of spin out companies when appropriate and has some
successful examples. In particular, Oxford Brookes is extremely active in the field of
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships: the Artificial Intelligence group has two upcoming KTPs
concerning machine learning techniques for trading and pricing, while the Computer Vision group
has won the 2009 National KTP Award selected over hundreds of project by the Technology
Strategy board.
Proposal Team Experience
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