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