RESEARCH into how to work out what new technologies are worth is being developed at Oxford University.

Current methods are reportedly too theoretical and cannot be used in practice and are mainly based on past financial investment and do not reflect the value of creativity in new technology.

Now, Professor Xialoan Fu and Dr Shaomeng Li of Oxford's Technology and Management Centre for Development (TMCD) are working with Chao Ai, head of Early Stage Investment to develop a pioneering approach, which involves drawing on big data.

The researchers created a database that matched all UK start-ups in the ICT sector that were - defined as being less than five years old between 2016 and 2015 - which matched more than 1,500 patents to 143 firms.

They then developed a model to determine how the characteristics of the patents, the companies themselves and the market into which the technology was introduced explained variability in their ultimate value.

The model explained around 85% of values and the model can now be used to predict what new technologies will be worth.

Professor Fu said: "The model has already proven itself to have a highly accurate predictive power, especially for technologies at an early stage of commercialisation.

"It also uses completely objective data, which is a significant improvement on existing methods.

"We are now looking forward to bringing our findings to the ICT community to explore the new model’s applications."

In late June the research was named Best Paper by the Innovation Strategic Interest Group at the 2017 European Academy of Management Annual Conference.

To find out more visit: www.ox.ac.uk