Far from the ivory towers of old, today's universities are increasingly bridging the academic and business worlds.

Leading edge research, technological know-how and business acumen, all abundantly available on campus, are spurring academics, researchers and students to start their own businesses and exploit the knowledge they have gained. Since the first campus companies appeared in the late 1960s, experts estimate that 500 businesses have been set up.

Universities have appointed industrial liaison officers and established incubation centres to assist the start-ups. But it is only in the last five years, with the increased availability of seed capital and venture capital funding, that the concept has really taken off.

In 1996, Enterprise Ireland introduced its Commercialisation of Research and Development programme. Since then, it has awarded 90 feasibility grants from which 38 companies, employing 300 to 400 people, have emerged.

"The concept of academics and students exploiting their research and setting up companies is only starting to bite. We expect to see a significant amount in the years ahead," says Mr Jim Cuddy, who oversees campus companies and other research programmes for Enterprise Ireland.

Perhaps the best-known former campus firm is Iona Technologies. Founded in 1991 by three computer scientists from Trinity College, the company has grown from a small, incubator unit on campus to a multimillion dollar company listed on the US Nasdaq exchange.

Other campus start-ups are exploiting ideas ranging from marine technology to gas detection, robotics, language learning software and Web-based genealogical tracing.

Earlier this year, Dr Barry Smyth from the computer science department at University College Dublin, set up a venture called Changing Worlds to commercialise his research on artificial intelligence. Dr Smyth has developed a technology to deal with the information overload on the Internet which automatically personalises Website content to meet individual users needs.

The company's first application, a personalised TV listings service, creates personalised TV guides based on users viewing preferences and habits. Available through MyTV on the Ireland.com site, www.ireland.com, or at www.ptv.ie, the technology could be incorporated into digital television sets.

Interest in the technology has been so great that Changing Worlds plans to add about 10 staff in the next few months and may move off campus next year, he says.

Another company whose business idea is paying off is Arqtech Laboratories, based at NUI Galway's Campus Innovation Centre. Arqtech tests genetically-engineered pharmaceuticals for impurities and includes among its clients such multinational drug companies as Organon and Schering Plough. In three years, it has grown to seven employees and an annual turnover of £480,000 (€609,911). Next year, it expects turnover to exceed £750,000. But the first year was tough and to survive, Arqtech had to find a business with an immediate revenue stream. This turned out to be water testing and treatment for county councils and local industries.

"The pharmaceutical world does not take decisions fast and we had very little cash flow in the first year. We had to adapt quickly and change tack to survive," recalls managing director Dr Michael Dawson.

One function of a campus innovation centre is to help academic start-ups make that transition to the business world. At a minimum, most provide low-rent premises and access to local skills and expertise. "THE university sees its role as the creation of knowledge and the teaching of that knowledge, but also the creation of economic value," says Mr Jim Byrne, enterprise development executive with UCD's industry programme. "In UCD's research strategy to 2002, one of the objectives is to double the number of campus companies."

At the rate at which campus companies are being set up, that is unlikely to be a problem. UCD already has 19 incubator units. NUI Galway has eight and wants to add another 10 while Trinity College Dublin recently bought an IDA enterprise centre in Dublin to expand its incubation centre.

The reasons for the surge in interest are not hard to find. Academics want a financial return from their ideas, students want to set up their own business rather than work for someone else, and universities see the presence of an incubation centre as a way to attract future research funding. It also provides student training opportunities and the universities may get an economic return. "There is a basic creativity in Ireland," says Dr Joe Watson, director of industrial liaison at NUI Galway. "A shortage of ideas is not a problem." In a sense, the campus company is the logical result of the research and teaching function of the university, says Dr Eoin O'Neill, director of innovation services at Trinity.

"We're seeing the completion of a cycle from education through res earch to invention and innovation and the delivery to society of a service or product that people want to buy," says Dr O'Neill.