One year off: new insights, perspectives on Firms-University interactions

After 10 years on the job and more than 200 hundred partnership deals with industry, it was time to take a break from the operational side. The pressure from a growing workload had been preventing any attempt to reflect and bring the meaningful perspective needed. At the same time, upcoming opportunities and challenges were calling for new insights requiring more time spent away from the bench.

With the support of my management, I have opted for a one year unpaid leave of absence in 2009.  This decision has triggered a serie of changes within the team that proved to be overall positive despite the additional  work linked to making sure the organization will cope with the requests flow.

My “sabbatical” work consists of three approaches: inward looking, outward looking and exploratory.

The inward part is linked to the mapping of the large diversity of partnering models used in Europe (and to a less extent in the US). Beyond a mere compilation of the models I had the opportunity to witness as President of ASTP, the goal is to outline general principles that apply to these models. Ultimately, such work should provide useful insights  to business and academic decision makers when evaluating the opportunity to partner.

The exploratory part is a direct consequences of the previous work. By mapping a serie of models, one defines also a boundary where it becomes challenging to find models applicable to specific type of partnering. This is where the exploratory part begins. For example, how to best partner with firms when the generated knowledge can span from technological to non technological character ?

Finally the outward looking part remains an indissociable part of any sabbatical work. This is why since early May , I have relocated in Boston for six months. Being able to interact within a multidisciplinary team of professionals (within the ITEC department at Boston University) and at the same time be part of a wide network of firms and research institutions focused on innovation will most likely make my stay a very valuable experience .

Looking back in 2008, wish for 2009

One have to concede that, in our developed countries, the financial crisis is the most striking event in 2008. Its implications are far reaching and we still need to grasp how deep they will go. During our last ASTP conference in Valencia, we discussed its impact for Knowledge and Technology Transfer.

Earlier on during the same conference, we also addressed the emergence of an IP exchange market. Preliminary data obtained using “automatic” rating of patents based on a serie of criteria (number and length of claim, citations etc..) seem to give some consistent results with their market value when licensed  (see the end of the “Market Forces and IP” presentation that can be found here).

On one hand, more “objective” tools to assess the value of IP are welcome and will be key to the development of an IP exchange market. On the other hand, the inherent limitations to IP valuation, especially at early stage of discoveries, will likely remain a source of uncertainty and lack of transparency.

Are we then on for another “IP market crisis” similar to what we saw in the trading of financial packages which nobody understood at the end of the chain ? – Probably not but the growing role of IP in the economy may put us at risk to see the emergence of IP related bubble. So my wish for 2009 is that 2008 may be remembered long enough to spare us similar crisis in other parts of the finance and business world.

Are patent auctions an opportunity to consider for Universities ?

Earlier this month, NASA annouced the successfull first bidding of a portfolio of 10 US patents in an auction helo by the US company Ocean Tomo. The proceed of 50’000 dollars will go back to NASA (see here for more information). Nothing new since the company organizing the auction has been operating for three years in this field. What is however attracting the attention is that for the first time a government agency  used this opportunity to sell some of its patents.

The question is now: are Universities next on the list ?

On one hand, that could provide a approach complementary to other channels of commercialization worth considering. On the other hand selling IP rights to unkown buyers may raise a serie of questions when this is done by a public research institution.

Does a University has a responsability in defining the type of partners it sells its technology to ? Beyond respecting the export regulation (probably something Ocean Tomo is keen to respect), should it go further ? Probably yes and so the relevance of auction tools to University owned IP may be limited to well defined cases. Recent efforts in setting guidelines for University ‘s licensing such as the “nine points to consider when licencing University technology” points toward more involvment of University when licensing , not less. Will patent auctions reverse this trend ? probably not.

When the time will come…

I recently was participating at the Western AUTM regional meeting in Hawaï (I was the only European actually). During the meeting I attented a presentation given by a young executive in a private company explaining how we, TTOs, should interact with them. Nothing new there with the usual stress on how we should present our technologies to them, what kind of question they need to see answered and the fact they are very busy and we should not expect always a feedback on their side.

In a way I wonder if this approach has now become slowly outdated in the open innovation economy. The idea of a buyer’s market where we (TTOs) should fight to get the company’s attention to market our technologies is maybe evolving towards a seller’s market where companies will feel more and more the need to come to the TTOs in order to make sure they maintain a lead on the innovation pack. I am pretty sure this time will come but the question is when. I feel this is close and probably the companies that have identified and acted upon this change will take the lead in the upcoming innovation marketplace.

General thoughts about certification

By Laurent Miéville, President ASTP

Certification has become in the last few years a recurring theme in KTT. Together with the growing interest of various young professionals eager to enter the field, recognition of experienced ones among their peers call for some kind of acknowledgement of qualified training and relevant experience in KTT. If we add the perception, mainly within the EU authorities, that our field needs to get more professional as compared to our American colleagues, it is no surprise that certification related issues are on the table.

Should we go beyond offering some basic certification linked to the successful completion of a serie of training courses for example ? Would we benefit by contributing to create and run an international, formal certification organization/process ?

On one hand a formal certification seems appealing. It could bring more clarity in a complex pool of qualifications with very diverse backgrounds. It would also help defining the shape of a real profession around KTT and could enhance the flow of certified people between private and public KTT practice. It would also support, through certified training, a more uniform way of practicing KTT, something that companies and EU authorities seem to be keen to see happen (see http://www.ttt-manager.eu for an example of formal certification effort).

On the other hand, formal certification would require serious undertakings such as the creation of an international body to define different certification levels together with their requisites. This process would draw a sizable effort from the professional KTT community to help define relevant certification levels, provide the necessary training and evaluate the certification requests. One could also argue that we should rather build on the diversity of KTT and innovation schemes in Europe and try to resist to the sirens of standardization in what remains business transactions.

On top of these general observations, specific characteristics of the pool of professionals need to be considered before deciding on the relevance of entering into a formal certification organization/process, such as for example:

1) Permeability. If it is high and not only junior but also many senior people enters the field, the necessity to offer grand-fathering schemes will arise, a challenging issue in certification (see discussions around LES –Certified Licensing Professional offering, for example on techno-l.org).

2) Heterogeneity. Diversity in skills/background/tasks in the pool of professionals will raise the complexity to define a certification title and process that offers a real added value above very “basic” certification. The different innovation systems found in each European country further contribute to fragment the relevant pool linked to a particular certification title.

3) Size. Certification schemes tend to be well fitted for large, homogeneous pools of professionals such as project management or marketing specialists. Communities with smaller, more fragmented set of profiles may find challenging to enter into the work/complexity required to benefit from a formal certification scheme.

For these reasons, ASTP has been careful in not taking a formal stand on these issues so far but rather participating in discussions with other associations aiming at clarifying further what type of certification would be best fitted for our community. We however need your feedback and for that reason we would appreciate very much if, as ASTP member, you could answer the survey that was sent to you.