Czech Academy of Sciences pursues more spin-outs with launch of joint-stock company

The Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) is hoping to better capitalise on the research results of its 54 institutes with the launch of a new joint-stock company. 

CAS Innovations, set to launch in April, will help the academy to centralise innovation activities, support the creation of spin-outs, develop later-stage technologies that would normally fall outside the scope of the academy’s activities, and provide innovation training to researchers. 

From launch, eight CAS institutes have come onboard as shareholders, with many more, if not all, expected to join later. Ultimately, the academy hopes to see new billion-dollar “unicorn” companies grow from its labs. 

It is not particularly common for academies of sciences to set up joint-stock companies, although most academies, universities and research networks do usually have some form of innovation arm to their model. 

The creation of the company comes as Czechia, under new governance following the appointment of Andrej Babiš as prime minister in December, re-shuffles its research and innovation policies to place more emphasis on commercialising research and growing start-ups. 

In this interview, CAS president Radomír Pánek explains the reasons for creating the company, why it is needed and how he hopes it will serve Czechia’s innovation ambitions. 

What inspired the idea to create this joint-stock company? 

The joint-stock company CAS Innovations was created after several years of building up technology transfer activities at the Czech Academy of Sciences. It draws on the experience of our CAS Technology Transfer Centre and responds to a concrete demand from our institutes for a strong, long‑term platform that can bring private investment into promising technologies. The main goal is to create value, both for the research institutes and for investors, and to generate long‑term returns through the commercialisation of research results. A key instrument will be an incubation programme that connects scientific teams and their technologies with strategic partners. The company is being set up as a subsidiary of the academy’s institutes. The memorandum establishing it was signed on 25 February 2026, and its activities will officially begin on April 1.

How will this improve on the current system of commercialising research results from the academy’s institutes?

The company will build specialised expertise and set clear, standardised processes for preparing, creating, managing and overseeing spin‑out and start‑up companies within the academy. At the same time, it will connect research teams with entrepreneurs, investors, and venture‑capital partners, an area that currently works rather ad hoc and without a common framework. Thanks to this, it will be possible to finance later stages of technology development that go beyond the academy’s budget, such as large‑scale testing or market entry. It will also open the door to new funding sources that will strengthen the long‑term sustainability and competitiveness of the academy’s spin‑out projects. In the end, this will help speed up the journey from a lab result to real‑world application, from biomedicine to energy to digital technologies.

How will the joint-stock company work in practice? 

The company will serve as a central platform that helps coordinate the creation of new technology firms within the academy, provide incubation, set clear rules for bringing in external capital and support the commercialisation of research results. Another key task will be to identify the projects with the strongest application and investment potential and help guide them systematically toward the market. The company has been founded by eight institutes of the academy, with the Centre of Administration and Operations as the majority shareholder. From the very beginning, it’s built as an entity firmly rooted in the academic environment, fully owned by the academy’s institutes. Shares in future spin‑out companies will be allocated based on transparent, unified rules that CAS Innovations will set over time. The company will be led by Martin Smekal, the current head of the CAS Technology Transfer Centre, who brings many years of experience in the field of technology transfer.

Tell me a bit more about the planned new incubation programme.

A key pillar of the new joint‑stock company will be a structured 12‑month incubation programme that helps turn promising technologies into investable spin‑out solutions. The goal is to systematically prepare researchers for entering the market and to strengthen their entrepreneurial skills. The programme will guide them through the whole journey, from building a team and shaping a business model, to approaching investors and formally setting up a spin‑out company. Over the year, participants will test the market potential of their technologies, develop detailed product‑development plans and map out their market‑entry strategy. By the end of the programme, each project should be ready to secure an investor.

Do you have targets in mind for how many spin-outs you’re hoping to see? Or in terms of how many more institutional partners you want to join the company?

In its first year, the programme plans to support ten selected projects that have the potential to become spin‑outs or tech start‑ups, with a total budget of CZK 30 million (around €1.2 million). We expect that most of the academy’s institutes will gradually join the company as shareholders or partners, because CAS Innovations is not meant to be a closed project for just a few institutes. It’s an open platform that any institute can join in the future under equal and transparent conditions. Our goal is to build a real bridge between science and business, and to maximise the economic and societal benefits of our research.

Are there any concerns that, over time, funding for the academy will depend more on the profits it generates from the company and related spin-outs, potentially resulting in less public funding?

Concerns that the academy could one day become dependent on revenues from this company are really not justified. In 2025, our budget was over CZK 23 billion (approximately €1 billion). Roughly two thirds of that came from public sources, so relying on this company for funding simply isn’t realistic. This new setup is meant to complement public funding, not replace it. The goal is to bring in private capital, especially for later stages of technology development where the academy’s own budget is no longer enough. Public funding will remain our main pillar, while the new company will serve as a complementary tool to help bridge the gap between research and business.

Czechia is increasingly looking at capitalising on its strong research. What role can the academy and its institutes play in this?

The academy and its institutes can play a truly key role in this process. Over the past year, we reaffirmed our position as the most productive scientific research institution in the country, and we achieved a number of important results across many fields, both in basic and applied research. The newly established CAS Innovations platform now gives us an opportunity to make even better use of this potential. Our ambition is to create an environment where technology companies with strong growth potential can emerge directly from Czech labs, ideally companies that could become so‑called unicorns or even major global players. This wouldn’t just strengthen technology transfer into practice, it would also boost the overall innovation performance of the Czech economy and improve its international competitiveness.