Tech. Tran. and the "Societal Contract"

Let us imagine a one-day brainstorming exercise at a well known Canadian university. I'm going to write it as if it REALLY happened. We were charged with looking at the technology transfer activity of that university from a “zero-base” starting point and coming up with a set of principles and policy guidelines that would make the whole activity better from the ground up. In attendance were all of the major players of the university – a member of the Board of Governors, The President, and most of the Vice Presidents. There were even a representative number of Deans and Chairs.

The day was divided into two parts:

- The morning session (with a break for lunch) would be to get a clear picture of what Technology Transfer meant (or better, SHOULD mean) to this institution and what the major obstacles were in the way of it BEING that optimal organizational machine.

- The afternoon session would then focus on how those obstacles could be removed to clear the path towards actually achieving the state that was envisaged as optimal.

It seemed like a good strategy.

The morning went reasonably well. There was of course the usual discussion about the role of the university in generating funds through commercialization the expectation of the granting agencies etc etc etc. To some “commercialization” is a “dirty” word on campus while to others it is the only path forward, making this a VERY controversial issue on most campuses in Canada. I was galvanized however by a definition that was readily reached by everyone. The role of the University is to enhance the society that feeds it and nurtures it. There seemed to be some sort of a universal agreement that there was an implicit “social contract” that the society would care for ITS university and that the university would in return enhance that society in every way possible. On this there appeared little doubt. The ways in which the university would justify the immense investment (make no mistake we invest our sons and daughters AS WELL AS HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY) from society included putting great minds and trained personnel into that society; great artists and inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians with a set of moral values etc. – and THINGS: improvements in our carbon footprints, ways to live sustainably, cures for diseases, etc etc etc.

Working with this remarkable unanimity we quickly focused in on the WAYS that this social contract can be fulfilled and by lunch we had come up with the definition of the ideal function of Technology Transfer being to put back into society the TECHNOLOGIES that had been invented through public funding as widely, quickly and efficiently as possible. This was clearly at least sometimes at odds with the goals of COMMERCIALIZATION which were centered around making money (sometimes sufficient to run the office, sometimes more than that). So we made a clear distinction between commercialization and Tech. Transfer. The harmony between groups that had disagreed for a long time about a place for any such activity on campus seemed to dissolve into thin air before us as we continued the dialogue. It became clear that the disputes were around the making of money through this activity. Of course I am simplifying greatly a debate that has raged on our campuses for quite a while but the principle is nonetheless true. The major obstacles that were identified seemed to center around two topics and, after a simple process of grouping and consolidation of thoughts, we came up with them just in time to write them on the whiteboard and break for lunch:

The purpose of a university is to better society which supports it and the Technology Transfer activities of a university need to serve this greater “societal contract”.

The major obstacles to Technology Transfer (as defined here) are:
1. The need to own IP
2. The need to participate in revenues from our inventions

The session after lunch was actually quite lighthearted and optimistic. It was quickly realized that the two major obstacles were under the COMPLETE control of the university itself. There was a simple clear path to achieving the goals of the ideal TTO. Give up its desire to hold (and of course to DEFEND) IP and simultaneously give up its desire and expectation to gain monetarily DIRECTLY from revenues that may result from the commercialization of one of its inventions. This is not such a remarkably unorthodox or novel idea as it may seem at first. The colleges in Canada owe a large part of their recent success in Technology Transfer (they call it something else and define it much better) to these two simple principles coupled to a third one: "We measure ourselves by the placement of our graduates in your companies". Even the government granting agencies have realized that their mandate to create jobs and improve society is more directly served by the colleges' actions than the universities' TTOs. Such great centers of learning as the major universities even in the US (the heartland of commercialization and free enterprise) have learned this lesson and have imposed limits on what an academic can make in revenues from any invention.

Another convincing argument for this approach is the careful examination of what one would be giving up. Few if any universities have made significant revenues from an invention compared to their general overall budget. For sure there are always the cases which defy the general rule. Taxol, Gaitoraid, WARF, and some remarkable other classical success stories come to mind. But surely the generality of that rule is not challenged by one or two exceptions. The general rule is that, for all of the effort that is expended in the field in Canada, there is hardly a justification for it based on the overall revenues that are received. And lets not forget the cost of obtaining this right to exclude others (that is what a patent is after all) and the damage that a lawsuit or a court battle (even if it is eventually won) can bring to a university.

The second part was a bit more contentious: Give up any claim on revenues. There is always the possibility that an invention will become a blockbuster drug or the new internal combustion engine or the new data compression algorithm for all cell phones etc. Why lose out on the chance to make some money. The reason was clear to this group. IT OBSTRUCTS THE CORE PURPOSE OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER. Industry is long past the selfish shortsighted era where it would not decide to nurture the very source of its new ideas and future products. That is amply shown in the case of Waterloo where RIM has been known to write multimillion dollar checks to the university more or less just by being asked and without any contractual tie to do so as a result of a technology licensed from that university.

So now the only thing that lay before us (and our flights home) was a plan of how this would be implemented. And HERE is where the creativity comes in. Take yourself out of the box of conventional thinking for just a moment and play along with me now. After all you have read down to this point haven't you?

If a university were to announce one day that it had the mandate to put technologies as quickly, widely, and efficiently into society as possible and as a result was prepared to GIVE AWAY an exclusive, worldwide right to commercialize (for free!) to that company which could demonstrate that it could do this best, then the table would have been turned overnight. Companies would approach the university instead of the usual unsuccessful approach by the TTO to companies. They would bring a “business plan” to the table rather than a skeptical attitude. They would tell how they could benefit society with the invention rather than asking the TTO to show them how this could be achieved. The nature of the contract would also be very different. It would be built around the promises made in the proposal and it would hold the company to that delivery or else the license would be revoked and all of the information and data generated so far would revert to the university and IT would be free to re-announce the competition – now armed with more real and useful innovative data. It would project the TTO into a place in society which really made a difference – that of the steward of value between the inventor and the societal benefit. The idea is not ENTIRELY new either. Joe Irvine of the University of Ottawa has in fact done this (in part) with some success. I believe that the TTO has announced that it will give away rights to its technologies for a limited time so that industry can take the technology for a “test run” and see what it can do. After that the university would be ready to negotiate a more formal contract. I would suspect that the limitations on the initial success of this approach are because the industry is not ready to trust that the terms will be as advantageous to them after they have demonstrated (to themselves and to the TTO) that the technology has legs. But the principle remains.

Bottom line: If, as people involved with the transfer of technology into society, we want to change the way we impact society we need to admit that the BASIC premises of what we do are not right and that we need to rethink the very foundational assumptions we have relied upon until now. In so doing we don't actually give up that much in reality and we gain a whole new perspective – of ourselves, our purpose, and the metrics by which we measure our success and along the way we align ourselves to the more wide societal contract that is the foundation of a university's success. The two ideas outlined above are a start. I would welcome any and all discussion as usual.

The EASt may be the solution

In the last four days I have visited no less than TWO of the three cities rated as the top on the scale of unemployment in Ontario if not CANADA as a whole. The three cities are Peterborough, Oshawa, and Windsor. It strikes me that the auto crisis in North America is hitting some people really hard. All that infrastructure that goes into an auto plant, all those highly skilled people and all of that support structure from the towns and provinces going to waste hit me hard. I began to think "What can I do?". It would have been easy for me to dismiss this thought and just forget about it. After all I am a mere CHEMIST. I have never been involved with the auto sector professionally except VERY recently and that too in only a peripheral way. But the thought kept nagging at me.

It was a long drive back from Windsor and this gave me time to rethink a conversation I had had there and to refine it. Somewhere we were discussing developments in India in the auto sector and how they are producing now (after the success of the Tata Nano)a car that will run 300 miles on a tank of... (wait for the drum roll) COMPRESSED AIR! They are setting about solving THEIR problems and addressing THEIR needs. It struck me that we in Canada are actually NOT doing that. Rather, we are allowing ourselves to be absorbed by a marketing campaign that is suited for the US and generated by the US and that actually doesn't suit our needs in Canada in this sector in some key ways.

I recalled that almost a half century ago some bright mind in India had thought about the needs of the middle class. They had decided that a STABLE manufacture of a relatively good but not "fancy" or "stylish" car at a reasonable price was the MAIN need. They went to the Austin company (in the UK) and bought the details for the manufacture of the model of the Ambassador car for the year just completed. They then made a commitment to make this SAME EXACT car for the next decade, year after year. Think what that did for the price. Think what that did for the "after market" industry for this particular make and model. Think what that did for the RELIABILITY of service - literally every auto-mechanic in the COUNTRY would eventually know this car like the back of their hands. Almost fifty years later in 2005 I stepped off a plane from Canada to India. There, to greet me was a brand new company car from the host company. Guess which one it was??? YES the SAME one that had been made there year after year for that long. The so-called Hindustan (the name given by these astute folks to the Austin Ambassador). I got into a conversation with the driver and he said that the after-market industry in this car had flourished to such a point that it was unthinkable that anyone would be able to stop its manufacture. You could quite literally do almost ANYTHING with these cars now.

I wonder if the Canadian minivan is not that sort of a car for Mums all across Canada. Think what they want: Reliable, easily serviced, reasonably priced, roomy enough for the 2.5 kids and high enough to be safe in the traffic. Of course reasonable on gas would be a plus but really that is getting much better these days for even the minivan. And there is no end to what one can think of to do in this category in after market add-ons.

What if some enterprising moneyed person were to buy this years minivan details and take one of the minivan factories that is now being abandoned and commit to make the SAME minivan for the next decade. Would that turn our auto sector around? Could it make jobs where today there is despair? Could its inevitable success spill over to say... the Pickup Truck sector? Who knows. But it is an experiment that has succeeded somewhere else in the world. And lest you are thinking "That could work in a DEVELOPING country but not in a DEVELOPED country like Canada."; that same experiment worked with taxis in London some years before the Indian experiment.

I think I can venture a guess as to where your mind is going at this time. You are probably thinking "Yeah but I like the fact that I get "new features" with each new model. That after all is the thrill of getting a new car." Let me point out that this is a marketing ploy invented by big companies with the PRIMARY aim of squeezing out the after-market industry so that those dollars spent there are funneled back to the big companies in the first place. Every one of us doesn't get a new car each year. And when we do we like some of the new features but I can't think of anyone who likes ALL of the ones they got and NONE of the ones offered by the competition. With the purchase of a simple relatively cheap "standard" model and a thriving after-market industry (need I point out that this could be UNIQUELY Canadianif such a canadian minivan were to be manufactured!) we could all get the features we WANTED - and only those - and we could get them as we could afford them not being forced into buying them all of them at the same time. Think of the eco-friendliness where car parts that have NOT outlived their useful lifetimes can be simply reused and the parts that have come to their useful limits could be simply replaced. We do some of this tese days but the used parts industry is very redundant. Look at the scrap yards in the country if you have any doubts.

Who knew that sometimes old and foreign is a possible solution to today's domestic problems. Your thoughts would be most welcome.