The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published the 12th edition of its Global Innovation Index. This year’s report, published on 24 July in India, is centred on medical innovation. CERN contributed a chapter entitled ‘How Particle Physics Research at CERN contributed to Medical Innovation’. The chapter highlights success stories and challenges of knowledge transfer from fundamental research to medical technologies, and how this process happens at CERN.

In healthcare, many state-of-the-art technologies were initially developed for fundamental research at institutions like CERN: radiotherapy devices deliver cancer treatment by means of particle accelerators, while PET scanners contain photon detectors. In particle-physics laboratories, innovative technologies are developed and fine-tuned to meet exacting research specifications. For them to drive innovation in the medical field, partnerships that bridge the gap between R&D and its application are often needed, as are effective dialogue with all relevant players, beneficial intellectual property (IP) policies and other knowledge-transfer strategies. CERN’s contribution to the GII 2019 looks at these strategies and reflects on how they affect knowledge transfer at CERN.

You can read the report by visiting https://globalinnovationindex.org/gii-2019-report.