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UiO signs cooperation agreement with Roche

UiO has entered into a collaborative agreement with the pharmaceutical company Roche to strengthen innovation within the field of life sciences.

“This agreement is an important step in reducing the gap that exists between the business-sector and academia. We depend on creating collaboration between the different parts of society in order to solve the global challenges we face in a sustainable manner”, says Per Morten Sandset, Vice-Rector of Research and Innovation, and continues:

“Roche is a partner in the great ambitions we have regarding innovation and entrepreneurship. It is great that we already have a concrete collaborative project in place, a professional training scheme, where students can work in companies and acquire a more innovative mindset as part of their education”, says Sandset.

Medical innovation through collaboration

Roche has had an active presence in Norway and collaborates with various research communities, such as Vaccibody, an international company that originated from basic research communities at UiO. However, it is only now that a concrete, collaborative agreement has been signed together with UiO and the Faculty of Medicine.

“We at Roche want to promote medical innovation in Norway through even closer and constructive collaboration between the business-sector and academia. We want to share the expertise we possess as one of the world’s largest biotech companies, and we hope that this collaboration will form the basis for even more collaboration with the education sector through mentorship programmes, professional training placements and joint scientific research projects”, says Karsten Bruin Slot, Medical Director at Roche Norway.

The agreement includes allowing up to four medicine and health science students to work summer jobs in Roche’s top communities. Read more about the internship here (Norwegian). In the future, Roche will also be able to contribute to teaching at many levels, mentorship schemes, research collaboration and new meeting places for researchers and the business-sector.

A more innovative mindset

In order to strengthen collaboration and exchanges between industry and academia, it is UiO’s goal to provide students and researchers with insight into the business-sector mindset. We need to know more about how to utilise knowledge from an academic standpoint.

“Through collaboration with the business-sector, we strengthen our culture of innovation and create synergies in each other by working side by side. As part of our long-term innovation work, we want students and researchers to have a closer connection to the business-sector so that they can create research networks and gain knowledge about new career paths. To achieve this, the collaboration with Roche is important. What we actually achieve through our new professional training scheme, is that students gain a closer relationship with working life, providing them with experiences that also strengthen their studies and research” says Hilde Nebb, Vice-Dean of Innovation and Internationalisation, and concludes:

“Our next goal is to put in place a mentoring programme that will further strengthen collaboration with Roche, and the exchanges that take place between our two worlds.

Published Feb. 22, 2021 2:17 PM - Last modified Feb. 22, 2021 2:18 PM