2020 - Well, that didn’t go very well did it ...

A few thoughts as 2020 comes to an end, some about university technology transfer, but not all.

Not frozen, but thinking ...

“Oh, I think your screen’s frozen, what was that, could you repeat ...”

“I am thinking, I paused for a moment, you didn’t miss anything ...”

A couple of the tyrannies of zoom: (1) Punctuality - widespread concern if someone isn’t ‘on’ the call within a few seconds of the allotted time. I remember meetings in offices where people would generally arrive on time, and if someone was not there on the hour (and it seems zoom calls must start on the hour, just like old-fashioned meetings; a friend once held a meeting to start at 11.37 - everyone was early to find out why) it was natural to wait a couple of minutes as more than likely they’d turn up. (2) Thinking - not allowed! A moments reflection, or pause, is quickly jumped on by the signal-strength monitors as a problem. Everyone has had to adapt so much to online life, it seems we still need to read silences better. Maybe they should introduce a new button to show ‘not frozen, but thinking’.

Working At Home

I have travelled widely throughout the year. I have spent mornings in Malaysia, lunch in Norway, and the afternoon in Italy; the early morning in Sydney, mornings in Spain, an afternoon in Mexico and the evening in California. All from my desk at home.

Working At Home is different from Working From Home. I started to work at home about five years ago; I love it. I have a desk in a quiet room with a calming view, and I do not work full-time. I was never a fan of Working From Home as a leader/manager; I used to refer to it as ‘not working from home’; I doubt colleagues thought that as amusing as I did. I believed in the huge benefits everyone had from coming in to work, focussing on being at work, being with team members and colleagues, sharing, learning, sparking-off each other, frequent planned and random exchanges.

All of this has changed ... so many more people no longer have the choice but to Work At Home. And this comes with benefits (travel time and expense), yet also significant costs; I worry about these costs, they are hidden and, in my view, unsustainable. These costs include not seeing colleagues, the casual chat, the friendly smiles; not everyone has the space, there is other stuff going on, work merges into one’s personal world. Home is now polluted by work; the separation has gone.

I dare say Working At Home will continue at higher levels than before 2020 for a few years; but I think and hope managers and leaders will want the workers back at some stage, for everyone’s benefit.

Innovation Community

I have received a lot of favourable comments about the section in my book on building an Innovation Community and using the word community and not the word ecosystem. I think this section has generate more comment than any others:

The word community is preferable to the word ecosystem, although ecosystem is used far more commonly. There are two reasons for this. The first is that success will come from all the people involved working together, as neighbours in a community working together for common goals. The second is that there is a lot of win-lose in an ecosystem; one member sets out to eat others, to dominate and destroy them. Community is better because it emphasizes the people involved and highlights working together.

There is a lot of thought behind this point of view, and a lot of good can come from its adoption; collaborate in the community.

Metrics

Measuring Technology Transfer has been a popular topic throughout the year; I have been asked to give a number of presentations about this; which has got me thinking. We know the state of the art, all the way from the early AUTM Licensing Surveys through to the UK’s REF Impact and now KEF. We talk about what we care about from Technology Transfer in terms of impact and benefits to society, using the narrative as well as the numbers far better. We now need to think about what we really care about. Things should be measured against what we really care about. University Technology Transfer should be measured against what we really care about. I really care about climate change, gender and racial diversity, prejudice and equality. I care about these things and I want to know what university technology transfer is doing about these things. The answers are sadly very thin on the ground.  

Gender raises comments about TTO office staff and boards/committees gender balance, but never anything about the impact that university research results have had on addressing gender issues in society, across the world, any which way.

Climate Change scores higher in that we can tell stories about carbon capture technologies, lower emission technologies, renewable energy tech, carbon-neutral buildings for example, and the role TTO have played in protecting and transferring technologies..

Race and university technology transfer - I would like to hear more people talking about the challenges, and talking about actions taken.

I have given a talk this year to a large organisation in the TT firmament with not a single person of colour at governance, leadership and management levels (this is about 20 people). Other boards may have one or two people-of-colour, but the numbers, actual and proportions are very low.

But this is only a part of it; if we care about race, what are we doing about it? What is university technology transfer doing about it? Let’s hear about the impact that university research results have had on addressing race issues in society, across the world, any which way.

Joseph-Kingman

In the world of university technology transfer, we should be talking in the UK about Joseph-Kingman the way the US (and world) talks about Bayh-Dole. Joseph-Kingman is the legislation introduced in 1985 by politician Sir Keith Joseph and scientist cum civil servant Sir John Kingman (father of Sir John Kingman, current Chair of UKRI), that unlocked the potential of university technology transfer.

The Joseph-Kingman legislation is now 35. In 1985 Sir Keith Joseph introduced new legislation in Parliament and Sir John Kingman signed the formal letter sent to British universities explaining that they could now seek to commercialize the results of publicly-funded research independent of the need to refer to the central government agency, the British Technology Group; the date of the letter was 14th May 1985.

Over in the US, Bayh-Dole is 40. In 1980 US Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole introduced legislation such that US universities could now seek to commercialize the results of publicly funded research independent of the need to refer to the Federal Government. There is a wonderful website set up by The Bayh-Dole 40 Coalition explaining all the benefits that this has brought the US and beyond: www.bayhdole40.org.

I really look forward to the development of something similar for Joseph-Kingman; it will be full of wonderful tales of UK university research results being commercialised and benefitting society.

For 2020, these can include UCLB’s e-lucid platform and the UCL-Ventura breathing aid (prime examples of the ‘rise of the NERF’ non-exclusive royalty-free licence), and OUI’s role in the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine collaboration.

Happy Christmas, Seasons Greetings and Bring On the New Year.

Tom

December 2020