Prospectus

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Research Based Business Planning

Course
2014-2015

Summary

In the course Research Based Business Planning you will be part of a team that develops a business plan for starting a new research-based company. While doing this, studying a guide and papers on business planning will enhance your understanding of the entrepreneurial process you are experiencing. Next to plenary course sessions, teams will have individual feedback and coaching sessions which involve experienced entrepreneurs.

Programme & Schedule

The course will run from April 13 till June 25.

Plenary sessions will be on Tuesday afternoons. In the plenary sessions, the theory for and progress with developing the various business plans is discussed and a guest speaker will talk about operational aspects of starting a company.
With your team you are required to work at the university on Thursday afternoon, when progress meetings with SBB staff will take place. You are invited to join the Interview with an Entrepreneur – part of the Ventures course – that starts Thursdays af 16.00 hrs.
You will need to spend an additional 0,5 to 1 day a week on team work and preparations for upcoming sessions. For full time RBB students, the allocated time for teamwork is Tuesday morning and Wednesdays are suggested days for additional self-study and preparing individual contributions to the business plan. However, teams may choose other hours of the week.for these meetings and individuals may prefer other moments for their individual coursework.

The kick-off date will be April 14th at 14:00 h.

Grading will be based on the written business plan (60%), the presentation of the business plan (20%) and some tests and/or class participation (20%).

Testimonials

By former participants Wouter Bruins and Oleg Guziy.

Participation

Intended for: MSc students, Ph.D. students, post-docs, university staff and others motivated for creating and working in research-based business.

Course fee:
no fee for university students;
Euro 200 for PhD students;
Euro 500 for non-students.
If applicable an invoice will be mailed at the beginning of the course.

Enrollment: For this course, it is not possible to register via USIS, instead make registration via our jot-form

Course outline

To ensure that the course provides a real-life learning experience in exploring and exploiting the commercial opportunities of science- and technology-based knowledge:

  1. Participants have to write a fully developed business plan that can be presented to stakeholders such as scientists that invented the technology, the institutions that own the technology and investors that are invited to fund its commercialization.

  2. The business plans are to be based on realistic, science- and technology- driven ideas or inventions. These may come from the participants themselves or from research staff of the Leiden University Faculty of Science or the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC).

  3. Participants will usually work in teams of 3-5 persons to be able to accommodate and to enhance the leaning experience, though, if circumstances so require, individual participation may be allowed.

  4. Participants will interact with scientists or the inventors, i.e. the staff that has done the research on which the business idea is based. The role of these staff members may vary from that of scientific consultant to being actively involved as an academic entrepreneur.

  5. Participation in a business plan contest is stronly recommended

Final deliverables of Research Based Business Planning

  • A fully developed business plan

  • A formal presentation of the business plan for a jury consisting of students, business professionals and investors.

Other RBB Courses

RBB Planning is part of a series of three courses with a course load of 5 EC each:
RBB Opportunities, RBB Ventures and RBB Planning and which can be followed together as well as separately. These courses arm students and (future) researchers with the basic knowledge of how to spot, assess and exploit an entrepreneurial, research-based business opportunity and have been desiged to lower the hurdles for students and researchers for getting involved in the process of starting high-tech ventures. This knowledge will be valuable for those who aspire to one day start their own company or who want to become involved in the process of company creation and development as tech transfer managers, business developers, business advisors, investment managers or serial entrepreneurs.

More information on our program on Science & Research Based Business.