The Technology Transfer Follow-Up Committee (TTFUC) was established to oversee technology transfer actions including startup creation and industrial partnerships, with meetings held bi-monthly to assess projects. The committee consists of Inria members and private sector experts who provide strategic advice and ensure professionalization of stakeholders in the transfer process. Despite early resistance, the initiative has resulted in increased project submissions and valuable recommendations for improving transfer strategies.

1. Technology Transfer Follow-up Committee
FITT
– Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer –
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
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2. A committee to follow-up transfer actions
Technology transfer actions concerned:
 Startup creation projects
 Industrial partnerships with transfer of assets (license or assignment)
 Industrial partnerships with transfer of competences (expertise)
 Participation to standardization actions within a transfer action
 An open source diffusions of an important INRIA code base
 Exit solutions for open source consortium led by INRIA
Committee is advisory for the INRIA Transfer department:
 go/no go (initialization and follow-up)
 transfer strategy adoption
 asking for an opportunity/feasibility study
 allocation of resources for maturation if needed
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3. A committee to follow-up transfer actions
 Composition:
 3 INRIA people
 1 INRIA -Transfert
 4 senior private experts:
 two competitiveness clusters: Systematic, Minalogic,
 1 private company – Mandriva
 1 from EPFL (Switzerland)
 national agency for innovation – OSEO
 When: one meeting every two months
 Process:
 Template description of the project built by the researcher, TT officer and Sectoral
TT Associate (available in the FITT toolbox)
 Submission sent a few days before the meeting (no late submission)
 A collaborative tool allows the follow-up by all the staff concerned
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4. Template description
Three types of description:
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5. When & where?
Timing
 Follow-up committee created in January 2009
 5 meetings held in 2009, 5 meetings expected in 2010
 45 transfer projects analysed in 2009
Location
 in Paris
 organised at the national level, the committee reviews and follows up all
technology transfer operations of the eight INRIA research centres
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6. Who?
Stakeholders
 Before the committee meeting: researcher(s), a regional TT officer, the
responsible of technology transfer in an application domain
 Preparation of the transfer case: file should be understandable and
analysable by the committee (no oral presentation of the case by project
leader)
 During the committee meeting:
 People from INRIA: Transfer and Innovation director, Transfer Strategies
manager, Technological Development director
 IT-Translation director: specialized in start-up creation
 Private sector experts: 2 people from “Competitiveness clusters”
(System@tic, Minalogic), 1 from EPFL (CH), 1 private company CEO,
1 person from OSEO
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7. Pros & Cons
PROs CONs
 Transfer oriented mind
 An approach which is not easily scalable
 Continuous process (no call for projects)
 Synchronization to be done with other
committees
 Co-design and follow-up logic
 Difficult to choose the experts, who must
 Project management goal and early analysis
be legitimate to “kill” the transfer projects
 Not a funding booth
 Risk of excessive formalization of the
process.
 Reduction of uncertainties
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8. Why ? (1/3)
 Rationale:
The Technology Transfer Follow-up Committee has been created
in order to:
 Have a clear and coherent view of all the transfer operations conducted
by a large PRO (managing 170 research teams)
 Impose professionalization of the different stakeholders, who are now
obliged to follow a path with clear guidelines, avoiding evident don’ts
 Have an access to advice from experts from the private sector (closer to
the market than the TT officers)
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9. Why ? (2/3)
 Rationale:
The Technology Transfer Follow-up Committee analyses and
 Does a follow-up: according to their maturity, transfer project are meant to be
submitted more than once, which ensures the control of implementation of
recommendations made by the committee
 The new dynamics has been created and it results in collective brainstorming
sessions to decide on the best transfer strategy to be applied (which is not
always the one that guarantees the best ROI)
 TT officer and researchers are not left alone facing
difficulties of transfer operations.
Source: Microsoft Office Images Clipart
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10. Why ? (2/3)
 Impact:
 Committee started slowly as at first TT officers
could feel excluded from the decision process
and were afraid of a “selection”
 After a couple of months, the majority of TT
officers understood the advantages of submitting
their transfer projects to the committee, which
showed to deliver useful recommendations and to
do a real follow-up.
 Transfer projects submissions are now too
Source: Microsoft Office Images Clipart numerous: people got convinced of the
committee added value!
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11. Lessons Learned
 Added value of private external experts having experience in technology
transfer at large
 A formalized process allowing people to brainstorm on elaborated transfer
projects in search of more professional behaviour (asking themselves a lot of
questions on the strategy)
 The need to go beyond evidence or conditioned reflex and to adopt a real
strategy which can be followed up
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12. Suggested Readings
 Link to bibliography:
 Link to code book:
Opportunity Assessment
Transfer strategy
Start-up creation
Exploitation
External experts
 Link to related websites:
www.inria-transfert.fr
www.inria.fr/valorisation/index.fr
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