Prof. Paul Wellings was asked to consider higher education issues related to intellectual property and research benefits.
In particular he was asked to explore in more detail the issue of how universities use and manage IP for their own benefit and for the benefit of the wider economy.
Prof. Wellings’ has now delivered his report: Intellectual Property and Research Benefits [PDF 1,123kb] which is publicly available for you to comment on.
You can join the continuing discussion on the issues and recommendations by posting your views on any aspect of Prof. Wellings’ report on this blog.
Comments made on this page will be brought to the attention of the respective policy handlers for this issue on a weekly basis.
We look forward to hearing from you.
(Comments posted on this topic earlier in the higher education debate process are still available in the archive for you to consult should you wish.)
Having worked as an investor in technology in the North of England for many years I’ve seen very little technology commercialisation from Lancaster University. I wonder then why should this report be commissioned from the VC of a university with such a low-profile in this activity?
1. Please could someone provide a summary of this report in plain English? I really can’t justify the time to wade through this stuff. Is it deliberately unclear? For example, Recommendation 9 - what does this actually mean? Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud.
2. In relation to Ed’s point, would it have made much difference if a VC from a leading university had prepared the report? VCs generally seem remote from the action when it comes to intellectual property issues. That is part of the problem.
“I wonder then why should this report be commissioned from the VC of a university with such a low-profile in this activity?”
To quote the university’s web site:
“From 1997 to 1999 [Paul Wellings] was Head of the Innovation and Science Division, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Canberra, and in 1999 he became Deputy Chief Executive of CSIRO.”
Wellings has, then, more experience in “knowledge exchange” than the vice chancellors from several universities that like to think of themselves as leaders in the field.
As to the comment “Please could someone provide a summary of this report in plain English?” I will see what I can do.
In the meantime, see what you can find on the general subject here:
http://www.sciencebusiness.net/
I have edited and written more reports about this subject than most. At a quick glance, it seems clear that this one managed to miss the attentions of a professional writer/editor. That is down to the person at DIUS who commissioned the report. They don’t usually ignore this step in the process.
I have just spent near on a week with people who inhabit this area. The view from business is that academics are a menace when it comes to managing IPR. But they would say that wouldn’t they?
Ashley re ‘hubs and spoke’
Whilst generally I have generally no problem with the majority of Paul Wellings’ recommendations and this University will contribute to the consultation via AURIL, the issues with such cliches as ‘hub and spoke’ is that the ‘devil is in the detail’. I am not sure what the correlation mentioned on P15 really proves as regards hub and spoke. We are a middle ranking University with and excellent relationship with our fellow university here, Sheffield University, as regards commercialisation. Indeed for 4 years we formally shared a partnership in Sheffield (also with the City Council) and informal links are excellent and trusting. Yet there has never occured an opportunity to do any commercialsiation together, despite a willingness on both sides in principle. There are numerous reasons for this; even ‘hubs’ may not have complementary patents or expertise; they may have VC arrangements (e.g. Biofusion) or ‘pipeline agreements’ which means they can’t be symmetrical with another institution; the relationships with the academics may have have a different character and be a continuuum of relationships, not just licenses or spin-outs; and fankly I don’t think the voucher system would work and there are more reasons for that which I won’t go into here, but fundamantally it is question about who an employee really works for for, and in a ‘hub’ they would naturallly work for the ‘hub’. Ideas that that they can be obliged to) give an equal service to the ’spokes’ are a touch nieve. It is true that ‘routes to market’ are key, but we use numerous different approaches and ahost of connections to construct these, far more than most univeristy ‘hubs’ could ever offer, though we do cooperate with some across the UK on particular patents and on commercialisation routes. Geography is also pretty irrelevant here. So I (personally) disagree with Recommendation 10. In my view it is not viable as phrased.
Peter Hayes
Director
Enterprise Centre, Sheffield Hallam
Professor Welling recommends:
“A statement outlining that the primary purpose is to create a wide range of social and economic benefits for the UK would assist in advancing the mission of universities.”
I think that universities should be told bluntly to get their IP out there so that wealth can be created for the UK.
eg
“The primary purpose of research commercialisation should be to transfer IP rapidly into enterprises.
Furthermore, he identifies the main barrier to commercialisation as being IP valuation discrepancies between university and industry. At the same time, he refers to 99.9% of patents in the US and UK being worth less than $1m return.
Well lets have a standard contract for 99.9% of cases, that allows bootstrap spin-offs to get off the ground without legal costs and time wasted.
On the question of hub and spoke, I have long felt that universities with relatively little commercialisation activity should consider clubbing together to run a technology transfer organisation that has a high throughput of licensing and spin-out work. A variant on this idea is to form an alliance with a university that already has a large TT operation. I can see that this might raise the concern about priorities that has been identified, but that can be addressed through setting work priorities, incentives, etc for TT staff.
Another reason for having a hub servicing several universities is that it could be outside the salary structures of the universities. My “ideal model” for TT activities would involve recruiting a commercial director from a technology-based company to run all significant negotiations, assisted by junior TT staff who would do the leg work with the academics.
“I have long felt that universities with relatively little commercialisation activity should consider clubbing together to run a technology transfer organisation that has a high throughput of licensing and spin-out work.”
This is already under way in various guises, but probably not enough. Edinburgh, for example, is working with Scottish Enterprise on just such a venture for the Scottish universities.
Guess what, the person running the show, Colin Adams, fits in with the idea of “recruiting a commercial director from a technology-based company to run all significant negotiations”.
The operation runs out of Edinburgh University’s School of Informatics. Unfortunately, their web site is silent on the venture. I just know about it because Colin gave me a crash course on them earlier today.
You could start here:
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/mfourman/blogs/news/2006/06/prospekt-partnership.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/7fbr8k