University Technology Transfer - Understanding the Label
I hope that business, governments and other commentators will come to learn and understand the difference between university research support activity which includes helping researchers win research funding contracts and collaborations with industry on the one hand, and university technology transfer activities on the other hand which help researchers transfer technologies that belong to the university along the commercial route of technology licensing and spin-out company formation. For those wanting to heap praise on either of these activities, please choose the right one. And I guess the same goes for those wanting to be critical. When industry and business are entering research collaborations aiming to generate new research results (intellectual property) with a university and negotiating the terms of these arrangements they are dealing with the research support function in a university. When industry and business are taking a licence to existing university owned intellectual property they are dealing with the technology transfer function.
Research universities in the UK generally have a Research Office and a Technology Transfer Office (“TTO”). The actual names given to these offices vary considerably, although of course research support takes place in the research office and technology transfer in the TTO.
As was written in an article from the TTO’s of the UK’s six leading research universities:
“In the Dowling Review as in many others there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what TTOs actually do; many of the discussion points mentioning TTOs are about work typically carried out by a university Research Office. Although this may be a trivial point for outsiders, it is an important misconception which resonates across the sector and needs to be corrected.” http://www.isis-innovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/5U-Dowling-the-real-issues-and-the-future.pdf (December 2015).
Nowadays research support and technology transfer are not the only descriptive labels we come across. We also need to understand and differentiate amongst knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange, knowledge commercialisation, wider engagement, and perhaps there are other new labels out there. These activities take place in offices, units, or companies, whose names and straplines may not accurately describe their activities.
In my experience there is now a general understanding of what TTO’s do, and this general understanding is that they do a lot more than technology transfer. This is accurate in some cases, not in others. This is what leads the people who do technology transfer to feel under attack when faced by criticism of TTO’s for activities other than technology transfer. I have always thought that ‘does what it says on the tin’ is a helpful approach in labelling and describing activities and office units.
As universities interact more and more with industry, business, entrepreneurs, and investors, it is very helpful if the university can assess in the context of a particular relationship if it is dealing with stuff which (i) already exists and is being managed by the technology transfer function, (ii) does not yet exist and may arise in a fresh research collaboration or (iii) both; where ‘stuff’ is results and outcomes from research activity.
Category ‘(iii) both’ is increasingly common, and in universities where the scale of technology transfer is modest, this is the natural starting point for most discussions with industry and business. This is a refreshing approach and may help to overcome some of the barriers faced as universities, business and industry interact more.
Tom Hockaday
April 2016
I hope that business, governments and other commentators will come to learn and understand the difference between university research support activity which includes helping researchers win research funding contracts and collaborations with industry on the one hand, and university technology transfer activities on the other hand which help researchers transfer technologies that belong to the university along the commercial route of technology licensing and spin-out company formation. For those wanting to heap praise on either of these activities, please choose the right one. And I guess the same goes for those wanting to be critical. When industry and business are entering research collaborations aiming to generate new research results (intellectual property) with a university and negotiating the terms of these arrangements they are dealing with the research support function in a university. When industry and business are taking a licence to existing university owned intellectual property they are dealing with the technology transfer function.
Research universities in the UK generally have a Research Office and a Technology Transfer Office (“TTO”). The actual names given to these offices vary considerably, although of course research support takes place in the research office and technology transfer in the TTO.
As was written in an article from the TTO’s of the UK’s six leading research universities:
“In the Dowling Review as in many others there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what TTOs actually do; many of the discussion points mentioning TTOs are about work typically carried out by a university Research Office. Although this may be a trivial point for outsiders, it is an important misconception which resonates across the sector and needs to be corrected.” http://www.isis-innovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/5U-Dowling-the-real-issues-and-the-future.pdf (December 2015).
Nowadays research support and technology transfer are not the only descriptive labels we come across. We also need to understand and differentiate amongst knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange, knowledge commercialisation, wider engagement, and perhaps there are other new labels out there. These activities take place in offices, units, or companies, whose names and straplines may not accurately describe their activities.
In my experience there is now a general understanding of what TTO’s do, and this general understanding is that they do a lot more than technology transfer. This is accurate in some cases, not in others. This is what leads the people who do technology transfer to feel under attack when faced by criticism of TTO’s for activities other than technology transfer. I have always thought that ‘does what it says on the tin’ is a helpful approach in labelling and describing activities and office units.
As universities interact more and more with industry, business, entrepreneurs, and investors, it is very helpful if the university can assess in the context of a particular relationship if it is dealing with stuff which (i) already exists and is being managed by the technology transfer function, (ii) does not yet exist and may arise in a fresh research collaboration or (iii) both; where ‘stuff’ is results and outcomes from research activity.
Category ‘(iii) both’ is increasingly common, and in universities where the scale of technology transfer is modest, this is the natural starting point for most discussions with industry and business. This is a refreshing approach and may help to overcome some of the barriers faced as universities, business and industry interact more.
Tom Hockaday
April 2016