Prior to joining University of Copenhagen, Niels worked 13 years at the Danish Technological Institute (DTI) as business consultant specialised in licensing and commercialisation of early-stage technologies from private inventors, public-sector research institutions, and startup-companies.
Niels Lysholm Engelhard is born in 1966 in Denmark and holds a Master in Agronomy from the University of Copenhagen (1995).
Niels joined the University of Copenhagen in 2008 and has primarily worked with management of all aspects of out-licensing of early-stage technologies; scouting, assessment of commercial value of inventions, licensee strategy, marketing of early-stage technologies, valuation of IPR and negotiation of license agreements. The University has six faculties 37,000 students and 8,500 employees (of which 5,500 researchers).
Niels began his carrier in the tech transfer business as an external consultant to the Danish Technological Institute in 1993 while writing up his master's thesis. Niels built up and managed a nation-wide network of technology scouts placed within Danish universities and became more involved in all aspect of the technology transfer. Alongside the licensing activities, Niels worked as a DTI consultant as a part-time Investment manager in 1998-2000 for two seed incubators and have been a board member of several high-tech start-up companies.
From 2000 to 2006 Niels worked mainly with private inventors, and small companies advising clients on different aspects of licensing and technology transfer including IRP strategy, road shows on how to manage and license inventions, IPR strategy for entrepreneurs, negotiation of license agreements.
Throughout his career Niels has been engaged as an external and internal guest lecturer in licensing at Lund’s University in Sweden, and University of Copenhagen (2009-).