Hi again!

We are back with another post from Chicago, where we are participating in a unique collaboration between Åbo Akademi and Northwestern University. We’ve come here to work with technology transfer, and will try to explain in this blog post why it is important.

One could think of tech transfer as a bridge that spans the gap between academia and the private sector: it helps to develop early stage intellectual property (IP) into new research tools for the use of scientists, or into new products or services for public use. Tech transfer also helps foster collaborations between researchers from different universities to advance a certain technology. Ultimately it might lead to licensing of the technology, sponsored research opportunities or the creation of a start-up (we’ll talk about these in more detail later). Even the university benefits from the process: it is able to retain intellectual property rights to the invention and fund more research with the licensing income generated by its IP portfolio. If the end result is something that benefits the public, it’s a win-win-win-win.

The problem however is this: not many scientists are aware that their research could be commercialized.

Even if the researcher would be aware of the possible practical implications of his or her invention, they necessarily wouldn’t have an idea on where to start: finding and obtaining the resources or knowledge needed for building a prototype, researching if something similar already exists and finding out if someone would be interested in their service, product or platform.

But fret not: this is exactly why technology transfer offices exist. They are experts at answering these types of questions.

Here’s an example: Lyrica was invented at Northwestern University. Thanks to the combined efforts of the inventor and the tech transfer office, the pharmaceutical was successfully patented and licensed to Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The drug has helped better the quality of millions of people’s lives, while providing the university with enormous licensing income, allowing for the financing of even more research.

So is technology transfer important for a University? Absolutely! It contributes to scientific research by creating new tools, fostering new collaborations and providing the income needed to fund more research. If a new start-up is formed around an invention, new jobs are created in the process. Most importantly, as we have seen with Lyrica, technology transfer has led to new products and services that improve our quality of life.  From new cancer treatments to faster modems, from environmentally friendly metal processing to beautiful flowering plants, technology transfer from academic institutions is advancing the way we live and work.

If you want to learn more about technology transfer, check out this link.

Hello!

We, Oskar Karlström and Lauri Falck, are two researchers from Åbo Akademi, and we’ve been in Chicago, US, since June. We have the privilege of participating in a unique collaboration between our home university and Northwestern University (NU). During our time here, we have been working at the Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO) at NU, with something called technology transfer.

What exactly is technology transfer? Tech transfer is a term used to describe a formal transfer of rights to use and commercialize new discoveries and innovations resulting from scientific research to another party. Sounds logical enough, right? Universities typically transfer technology through protecting (using patents and copyrights), and then licensing new innovations.

But why are we at NU? The tech transfer office at NU (INVO) is, and has been for quite some time, one of the absolute best in the world at translating innovations from the university into commercial products that benefit both the university and the public (see link).

Our mission as participants of this collaboration is to learn as much as possible about the tech transfer process at NU and bring valuable insight back to our home university in order to improve the technology transfer activities there. A sponge is a good analogy for our role: trying to suck up as much information as possible during our internship, and then squeezing that out at ÅA.

During the first eight weeks of our stay we have also been participating in a course called Management for Scientists and Engineers at Kellogg School of Management – one of the best business schools in the world.

More information on why technology transfer is important and how the course has helped us understand the business side of things will follow later.

Lauri and Oskar