The article below appeared in the April 2009 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. Click here to subscribe.

Some TTOs are going a step further and enlisting outside resources to help bring faculty into the tech transfer fold. At Rice University in Houston, Stacey Kalovidouris, PhD, last year approached the Houston Technology Center (HTC), a local nonprofit, to help get Rice researchers more engaged in commercializing their ideas. As executive director of Rice’s Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB), Kalovidouris is responsible for promoting interdisciplinary research and commercialization among 13 science and engineering departments.

“Most of the faculty have specialized training in their fields, but there was a gap in their business knowledge and understanding how that knowledge applies to commercializing technology,” Kalovidouris says. “We needed a program that allowed the faculty to meet experts in commercialization and to learn about the resources here on campus.”

“By their nature, researchers have little interest in commercialization,” adds Tom Kraft, the HTC’s director of client services. “Most of them like to develop knowledge and share it as quickly and freely with everyone as they can. Commercialization is seen as a little lowbrow.”

A chance meeting with Kraft and a colleague led to collaboration among the IBB, HTC, Rice’s Office of Technology Transfer, and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. Through a program known as “Commercialize It,” faculty can meet informally with business development professionals from the university and community who volunteer their time to critique their technologies in terms of commercialization prospects. Already, the program has spawned two Rice start-ups: Houston Medical Robotics and 3D Biosciences, Inc.

The program has been soft-sold to faculty, says Nila Bhakuni, Rice’s director of technology transfer. “We didn’t push this program on the faculty. Instead, they tell us what they want. It’s important for us to be customer-driven, listen to them, and work to meet their needs as the program goes forward.”

The reaction — and results — of the Commercialize It sessions brought into clear focus the importance of networking with faculty and gaining their trust. “The program is a great catalyst,” Bhakuni says. “The sessions on commercialization got some researchers excited, and as a result we’ve had more interaction with them.”

POC centers are models of outreach

Some outreach efforts are more structured than others. One of the nation’s most formalized outreach approach can be found at the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, which works hand-in-hand with the school’s Technology Licensing Office in a carefully orchestrated process to accelerate the commercialization of technologies.

Along with two levels of ignition-type grant programs, Deshpande — with only three full-time staff — depends heavily on volunteers from the business community known as catalysts, who meet one-on-one with researchers, offer guidance on their technology, and assess commercialization prospects, says Carol Sardo, the Deshpande Center’s program coordinator.

The catalysts are vetted for their industry expertise as well as experience in commercialization and mentoring researchers. Considering MIT’s entrepreneurial culture, identifying and recruiting potential catalysts isn’t a huge challenge, Sardo says, even though working with university researchers on an emerging technology requires a considerable time commitment. All of the individuals who participate as catalysts — many of them MIT alumni — sign a formal agreement to abide by confidentiality and conflict of interest guidelines.

Through a collaboration with MIT’s Entrepreneurship Center, Deshpande also offers an innovation team, or i-team, course each semester in which student teams from MIT’s Sloan School of Management evaluate the commercial feasibility of actual university research projects and develop go-to-market strategies for the technologies. And the Center hosts a variety of events that link MIT researchers with individuals from the local business community. Its annual IdeaStream Symposia — open by invitation only — enables participants to get a sneak peek at MIT research projects that are expected to make a splash in the marketplace in two to four years. Although the events include a formal agenda of lectures, discussion groups, posters, and innovation pitches, the goal is to create opportunities for structured and unstructured networking between researchers and VCs or licensees.

An integrated approach

Across the continent, the University of California-San Diego’s William J. von Liebig Center takes what it calls an integrated approach to faculty outreach. The Center sponsors an annual entrepreneurship technology showcase that brings VCs, angel investors, and other potential strategic partners together with researchers and early-stage companies from the engineering school. Following formal pitches, the business professionals mingle with the inventors to learn more about their technologies.

Last year, UCSD expanded von Liebig’s commercialization services by offering advisory services for faculty researchers and introducing commercialization grants.

“We have an integrated approach to commercialization that includes pre-seed funding for proof of concept, business advice for faculty provided by entrepreneurs, and courses in entrepreneurism for graduate students, because the graduate students are often the ones who leave the university to go with a venture,” says Rosibel Ochoa, PhD, acting director of the von Liebig Center. “We leverage all of those elements to engage with the faculty and the research community.”

The Center also offers a formal grant solicitation process seeking ideas in particular technologies. When researchers respond to these requests by submitting a 250- to 500-word description of their technology, Ochoa assigns them a business advisor — “even if they don’t know whether they’re interested in commercialization,” she says. The advisors — outside business professionals and serial investors who volunteer their time — ask probing questions to assess the technology’s commercial feasibility and suggest additional steps to bring the concept to fruition.

“This is a way to engage with the researchers in a very nonthreatening environment,” Ochoa points out. “You start guiding them and walking them through the commercialization process. At the end of the day, you develop a relationship of collaboration and trust.”

Like the Deshpande Center, the von Liebig Center doesn’t manage the IP, but it works directly with UCSD’s TTO and with outside agencies such as CONNECT, a San Diego economic development agency. “All of the portfolio management and licensing is handled by the technology transfer office, so we have to work hand in hand,” Ochoa says. “Sometimes professors come to us and they have not even disclosed to the [TTO], so we refer the researchers there. We get referrals from the tech transfer office as well.”

Relationship-building is the key to establishing closer ties with researchers, sources agree, and putting that responsibility at least in part outside the TTO — which must negotiate licenses with faculty start-ups and walk a fine line between supporting faculty and representing university interests — has been a key to success for both MIT and UCSD.

“Having a group that’s separate from the negotiations side and focused on working with the faculty is helpful,” Ochoa says. “A group of advisors who are part of the organization but not directly involved in the actual licensing transaction can provide a supporting role — guiding faculty through the process from the very beginning. By the time you have to negotiate a legal document, everyone understands the framework.”

Ply the Rolodex to assist researchers

Few university TTOs, however, enjoy the luxury of an in-house commercialization center that can serve as a one-stop liaison with researchers. But a growing number are developing informal outreach programs that rely heavily on their Rolodexes and the assistance of local economic development agencies.

At the University of Pennsylvania, relationships between the TTO staff and faculty members were “broken” when he arrived in June 2007, says Michael J. Cleare, PhD, associate vice provost for research and executive director of Penn’s Center for Technology Transfer (CTT). Cleare set about improving outreach to faculty and was rewarded with a 40% increase in disclosures during his first year, which prompted him to expand the CTT staff by 50%.

One of Cleare’s new hires was John S. Swartley, PhD, the CTT’s senior director of new ventures. Swartley oversees Penn’s start-ups, so he spends most of his time visiting researchers and linking them with resources to take their technology to the next level.

“We like to think of ourselves as matchmakers,” Swartley says.

Off campus, Swartley cultivates relationships with investors, entrepreneurs, potential licensees, and economic development groups. Select Greater Philadelphia is one example of a “bipartisan” business development organization that extends the CTT’s reach in a tri-state region that comprises 11 counties and more than 90 colleges and universities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. “Select Greater Philadelphia provides us with access and with a nexus for related interests in the region,” Swartley says. “We have an opportunity to share our needs and interests, and the whole group benefits when the individual stakeholders benefit.”

Select Greater Philadelphia has developed an informal coalition of corporate CEOs, TTO and university executives, and VCs that are working together on a three-pronged mission to improve technology commercialization: 1) stimulate the creation of a proof of concept fund; 2) develop a “clubhouse” to build relationships among inventors, investors, and entrepreneurs; and 3) launch a marketing program to promote the region’s commercialization assets.

Tom Morr, the agency’s president and CEO, says tapping into outside resources can help TTOs keep their researchers focused on science, while a commercialization support system takes care of the business aspects of tech transfer that rub so many faculty the wrong way. “If somebody’s primary talent is to do basic research, you don’t want to divert their attention from that activity, which, ultimately, is part of innovation. The challenge for every technology transfer office is how to be a value-added service to students and researchers without diverting that attention.”

Tactics to improve your outreach

Research commercialization experts offered a variety of simple but effective strategies to help TTOs improve faculty outreach:

• Open your door and step outside. Building bridges with researchers depends on interacting with them on a regular basis, Swartley says. Penn operates a “hub-and-spokes model” of tech transfer that offers a centralized office to manage disclosures, with each licensing officer maintaining individual relationships with faculty. “We’ve made a conscious effort to have a dedicated, consistent, personal relationship with our faculty members, and consistency is the key,” Swartley says. “We’re careful to make sure that we have a transparent level of communication with faculty so they understand what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we’re helping them. We want to be a partner in the process.”
  “Commercialization is all about building a relationship of trust,” Ochoa agrees. She advises TTO staff to visit researchers’ labs, attend seminars sponsored by various departments, and read the literature to stay current in your leading technologies. “You need to take a personal interest,” she adds.
• Develop mixers to cross-pollinate the activities of your scientists. Spending time out of the lab to discuss commercialization is often not high on researchers’ priority list, Kraft notes. Rather than insisting on formal meetings, he prefers organizing informal networking events within and outside the university that bring TTO staff together with faculty and students from a variety of disciplines. “Have the meetings on academic grounds, and make sure the invitees are steeped in academics — not just business,” Kraft suggests. “Also invite a champion at a very high level — provost, vice provost, dean — so the researchers see that the people on top of the academic pile believe in this initiative.”
• Tap your alumni, donors, and other professional resources with university ties. Linking a researcher with a serial entrepreneur isn’t necessarily a recipe for commercialization success. Outside advisors need to appreciate the challenges your university faces just as much as they understand the roadblocks to commercialization. “There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there, but when they approach the university they are disappointed because they don’t understand the mentality of working within the university,” Ochoa says. “You can have a lot of volunteers in tech transfer, but sometimes they don’t realize that working with faculty is not the same as working with a very driven CEO or entrepreneur who just wants to run with an idea. The entrepreneurs and investors also need to understand the role of the university.”
• Connect your researchers with the economic development community. Local economic development agencies are expert at identifying funding sources — a key need in the current economic environment. “Unfortunately, faculty spend way too much time having to write up grants,” Kalovidouris points out. “If you can ease that need by creating extra sources of capital, that can free up their mind to pursue their research.” Economic developers also can help to build bridges among research organizations in a community that can foster collaborative research. In Houston, the HTC organizes quarterly meetings that bring together representatives from all of the local research organizations. “We have good relationships with all of the other offices because we share our successes and our failures,” Bhakuni says.
• Build a bridge between your researchers and the resources they need to continue their work. Help researchers connect with experts who will help to nurture their technology for the long term. “Sometimes, the first idea is not very viable,” Ochoa points out. But as researchers begin to understand what they need to take an idea from the lab to the market, “they keep coming back,” she says.

Whenever an MIT project is selected for an Ignition or Innovation Grant, the Deshpande Center creates a team to assist the faculty researcher and conduct IP background reviews. Every project team includes a volunteer catalyst and a technology licensing officer, which generates a natural dialogue among the researchers, licensing office, and business community, Sardo points out. Although the team structures formal reviews to track the progress of the technology, individual team members also communicate frequently with the faculty researcher to answer questions and suggest opportunities to showcase the technology at various internal and external events.

At Penn, when a local company, entrepreneur, or VC expresses interest in a certain type of technology, the CTT often arranges a site visit with a faculty member in that field. “We bring people together in the context of the faculty member’s favorite subject, which is their own research,” Swartley says. “That’s a great way to break the ice.”

Contact Bhakuni at 713-348-6231 or bhakuni@rice.edu; Kalovidouris at 713-348-3719 or stacey.kalovadouris@rice.edu; Kraft at 832-476-9257 or tkraft@houstontech.org; Morr at 215-790-3740 or tmorr@selectgreaterphila.com; Ochoa at 858-822-6775 or rochoaf@soe.ucsd.edu; Sardo at 617-253-8921 or csardo@mit.edu; and Swartley at 215-573-4511 or swartley@ctt.upenn.edu.