Notes from the Field

My technology transfer experience is limited to the American university context. From that basis I can offer some perspectives on why and how technology transfer is conducted at U.S. universities, and possible differences with the German context.

A central premise of the author is that "The foremost motivation driving an individual researcher's work is the pursuit of intellectual challenges to satisfy one's intellectual curiosity and to find intellectual pleasure . . ." is the essential underlying context for technology transfer at American research universities. The implications of this premise are profound, and generally only understood by sophisticated corporate technology adopters. Unfortunately, few public policymakers and members of the general populace understand this premise. Essentially, individuals with high intelligence and scientific curiosity find universities to be receptive communities to practice their intellectual curiosity. To intervene by rigidly directing research agendas, as opposed to providing funding to allow individualist responses to agendas defined by peers, would likely drive many U.S. research-productive faculty into other career paths.

The author's characterization of the research at U.S. research universities as cross-disciplinary, externally funded, peer-review dominated, and predominantly composed of small groups of intellectually aligned faculty and students is well articulated. At U.S. research universities, peer-recognized faculty domain experts working with colleagues from complementary disciplines are responsible for securing funds from federal government research agencies to support their own time and purchase of graduate and postdoctoral student time. The responsibility for research success rests on the primary investigators (faculty) to devise scientific agendas acceptable to federal program managers and peer reviewers, securing and motivating bright students to execute the work plans, and conveying the results in top journals, thereby adding to the body of knowledge. The university's role is to create a supportive research administration and regulatory compliance environment that allows investigators to build this virtuous research cycle. In a similar way, universities that want to excel at technology transfer need to build a similar virtuous cycle. Expanding incentive and reward criteria into tenure and promotion is a frequently suggested mechanism for creating synergy between research and technology transfer. Two other less obvious, and I believe more essential, aspects are providing appreciable financial rewards to investigators (personally and to their laboratories as discretionary funds) from successful licensing (royalty streams) and ensuring adequately funded and institutionally accountable professional technology licensing offices.

In my mind, the author is correct in asserting that innovation and application of innovative results cannot be left to chance by an institution. A certain level of formality (institutional arrangements) is necessary, but at the same time too much formality will stifle the process. American universities seeking to take advantage of their intellectual property (IP) assets need to strike a balance between formalistic structures common to other parts of academe and entrepreneurial structures common to early-stage technology commercialization. Striking this balance may be easier in the U.S. context as compared to the European context because entrepreneurship in the United States is a fundamental driving force for economic vitality. Mores of U.S. civic culture, such as reasoned risk taking and rugged individualism, correspond with capitalist system norms, such as higher risks deserving higher returns.

The author discusses knowledge transfer as an individualistic (e.g., researcher to researcher) process and technology transfer as an institutional (e.g., university to company) process that supports knowledge transfer. In the United States, university-context technology transfer means securing and licensing IP. Given the necessity to secure IP before it can be an asset available to be transferred, the author has not placed enough emphasis on a critical intermediary dimension of the technology transfer process—identifying and protecting the research-derived IP. At U.S. universities, the institution almost always owns IP created by employees. Not so in German research institutions, although the author mentions some recent changes to that policy imperative in Germany. At U.S. universities, institutional ownership of research-derived IP (primarily patentable materials and constructs, processes, or uses thereof) exists contrary to academic norms of ownership of scholarly and creative works (e.g., papers, books, and art) by the author/creator...