Shanghai has established a team of people to match local universities and enterprises in an attempt to translate more scientific research into reality.

Officials with the Shanghai Education Commission revealed yesterday that it has registered the first group of 60 certified agents with Shanghai Higher Education Technology Agent Co Ltd.

Most are university officials who oversee individual schools' scientific research achievements as part-time go-betweens.

All have passed training courses before they acquire a qualification issued by the Shanghai Professional Testing Authority.

Lu Jianguo, head of the agent company, said that agents need a mixture of expertise in science, business, communications and law.

They will collect research achievements in local universities, assess the programs' market prospects and more importantly, promote the achievements to businesses, he said.

Once they find interested investors, agents negotiate the whole process of establishing partnerships, commission officials said.

"In an era of building an innovative society, we badly need many technology transfer agents. Otherwise, new inventions are likely to be left idle and won't be of any help to the country," said Wang Qi, vice commission director.

(Shanghai Daily November 5, 2007)