This document discusses the evaluation of technology transfer projects. It notes that 46% of R&D resources are spent on projects that fail or never reach the market. There is a need for an initial assessment of inventions to evaluate their technical and commercial potential before allocating further resources. The objectives of this first-level assessment are to provide an initial view of transfer opportunities, maximize return on research, and ensure dissemination of results. The document then outlines some common practices for the initial evaluation, including tools for quickly assessing business ideas, typical evaluation criteria, and technology transfer follow-up committees.
When the deal flow from the laboratories to the technology transfer office (TTO) is optimal, technology transfer officers are susceptible to receive many inventions with commercial interest. A lot of early-stage inventions require substantial human and financial resources to be developed into marketable products. In order to establish whether or not the resources of the TTO should be spent to seek a commercial exploitation, a first-stage evaluation is often performed shortly after an invention has been identified. The complex decision process that technology transfer officers go through in this regard is introduced below.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Strategic Foresight for Collaborative Exploration of New Business FieldsRené Rohrbeck
To ensure long-term competitiveness, companies need to develop the ability to explore, plan, and develop new business fields. A suitable approach faces multiple challenges because it needs to (1) integrate multiple perspectives, (2) ensure a high level of participation of the major stakeholders and decision-makers, (3) function despite a high level of uncertainty, and (4) take into account interdependencies between the influencing factors. In this paper, we present an integrated approach that combines multiple strategic-foresight methods in a synergetic way. It was applied in an inter-organizational business field exploration project in the telecommunications industry.
When the deal flow from the laboratories to the technology transfer office (TTO) is optimal, technology transfer officers are susceptible to receive many inventions with commercial interest. A lot of early-stage inventions require substantial human and financial resources to be developed into marketable products. In order to establish whether or not the resources of the TTO should be spent to seek a commercial exploitation, a first-stage evaluation is often performed shortly after an invention has been identified. The complex decision process that technology transfer officers go through in this regard is introduced below.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Strategic Foresight for Collaborative Exploration of New Business FieldsRené Rohrbeck
To ensure long-term competitiveness, companies need to develop the ability to explore, plan, and develop new business fields. A suitable approach faces multiple challenges because it needs to (1) integrate multiple perspectives, (2) ensure a high level of participation of the major stakeholders and decision-makers, (3) function despite a high level of uncertainty, and (4) take into account interdependencies between the influencing factors. In this paper, we present an integrated approach that combines multiple strategic-foresight methods in a synergetic way. It was applied in an inter-organizational business field exploration project in the telecommunications industry.
Mercredi 1er février 2017 de 9h00 à 17h00, venez échanger sur la classe inversée avec des collègues de l'enseignement secondaire au supérieur au Pôle Numérique Rennes Beaulieu. Pour vous inscrire : https://www.eventbrite.fr/e/billets-mini-clic-sur-la-classe-inversee-31012058903 ou sur Toutatice : https://portail.ac-rennes.fr/Inscription-Evenement/jsp/inscription/login.jsp?id=56
Kathryn Sloane and Ben Chong Live Webinar: Power Shifts in Men's BeautyBrandSquare
What do men see when they look in the mirror? Think of your brand as that mirror. It can reflect basic hygiene and grooming to meet social norms, or it can reveal expressive possibilities for a highly personal style. Asian markets lead the world in embracing men’s beauty. And while most Western men aren’t quite ready for foundation and lipstick, they’re increasingly looking to flaunt their own individuality. Hold a mirror up to the East and visualize new opportunities for helping these men look their best.
Watch the entire webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QHoKNpdP-s
This is a BrandSquare webinar presented by Kathryn Sloane, director of growth at SGK and Ben Chong, head of strategy at Anthem. Anthem is part of the brand development group of SGK, which is a Matthews International company.
FITT Toolbox: The detection of research results that could be successfully transferred to industry is the starting point of the technology transfer process. Only once a promising technology has been spotted, the technology transfer officers can start to investigate the appropriate ways to protect the related intellectual property and to bring it to the market. The following document will bring you insights into the main challenges on this matter and the material available in the toolbox to address them.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
FITT Toolbox: Technology Transfer Follow-up CommitteeFITT
The Technology transfer follow-up committee was set up for analysis of transfer actions in order to find the best transfer strategy. Projects such as start-up creation, industrial partnership, open source diffusion and others are examined by an advisory committee, which provides feedback and recommendations for the choice of strategy and allocation of resources. The composition and work of the committee have already proved to bring added value to the performance of the public research oganisation regarding technology transfer.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
The performance of a public research organisation in generating innovations and transferring technology is largely influenced by the transfer awareness of researchers. The research staff who are interested in transferring results and understand this process are more likely to follow properly the disclosure and patenting procedure, anticipate and communicate with TT responsible in the right moment, be more product and market oriented or participate in choosing the transfer strategy and potential partners. Some examples of actions which the TTO can use to create transfer awareness among researchers and engineers are presented in this process.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Monitoring of activities includes different ways of managing information flow between laboratories and the technology transfer offices, which ensure that detection of transfer opportunities is successful: done early in the process, on the basis of continuous deal flow, without missed potential. The pro-active approach allows to have the maximum overview of relevant activities in the labs and to act in the right moment with strategy proposals and necessary guidance. The practices available in the toolbox concern monitoring of such activities as: invention disclosure, collaborative research with industrial partners and satisfaction survey, as well as consultancy provided by researchers of a public research institution.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Mercredi 1er février 2017 de 9h00 à 17h00, venez échanger sur la classe inversée avec des collègues de l'enseignement secondaire au supérieur au Pôle Numérique Rennes Beaulieu. Pour vous inscrire : https://www.eventbrite.fr/e/billets-mini-clic-sur-la-classe-inversee-31012058903 ou sur Toutatice : https://portail.ac-rennes.fr/Inscription-Evenement/jsp/inscription/login.jsp?id=56
Kathryn Sloane and Ben Chong Live Webinar: Power Shifts in Men's BeautyBrandSquare
What do men see when they look in the mirror? Think of your brand as that mirror. It can reflect basic hygiene and grooming to meet social norms, or it can reveal expressive possibilities for a highly personal style. Asian markets lead the world in embracing men’s beauty. And while most Western men aren’t quite ready for foundation and lipstick, they’re increasingly looking to flaunt their own individuality. Hold a mirror up to the East and visualize new opportunities for helping these men look their best.
Watch the entire webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QHoKNpdP-s
This is a BrandSquare webinar presented by Kathryn Sloane, director of growth at SGK and Ben Chong, head of strategy at Anthem. Anthem is part of the brand development group of SGK, which is a Matthews International company.
FITT Toolbox: The detection of research results that could be successfully transferred to industry is the starting point of the technology transfer process. Only once a promising technology has been spotted, the technology transfer officers can start to investigate the appropriate ways to protect the related intellectual property and to bring it to the market. The following document will bring you insights into the main challenges on this matter and the material available in the toolbox to address them.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
FITT Toolbox: Technology Transfer Follow-up CommitteeFITT
The Technology transfer follow-up committee was set up for analysis of transfer actions in order to find the best transfer strategy. Projects such as start-up creation, industrial partnership, open source diffusion and others are examined by an advisory committee, which provides feedback and recommendations for the choice of strategy and allocation of resources. The composition and work of the committee have already proved to bring added value to the performance of the public research oganisation regarding technology transfer.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
The performance of a public research organisation in generating innovations and transferring technology is largely influenced by the transfer awareness of researchers. The research staff who are interested in transferring results and understand this process are more likely to follow properly the disclosure and patenting procedure, anticipate and communicate with TT responsible in the right moment, be more product and market oriented or participate in choosing the transfer strategy and potential partners. Some examples of actions which the TTO can use to create transfer awareness among researchers and engineers are presented in this process.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Monitoring of activities includes different ways of managing information flow between laboratories and the technology transfer offices, which ensure that detection of transfer opportunities is successful: done early in the process, on the basis of continuous deal flow, without missed potential. The pro-active approach allows to have the maximum overview of relevant activities in the labs and to act in the right moment with strategy proposals and necessary guidance. The practices available in the toolbox concern monitoring of such activities as: invention disclosure, collaborative research with industrial partners and satisfaction survey, as well as consultancy provided by researchers of a public research institution.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Mobile based gnss services and applications in sub-saharan africa from idea ...TUNDE KALLAI
The objective of this paper to highlight some of the challenges facing in Sub Saharan Africa towards the realization of GNSS technology in the three chosen African countries namely, Cameroon, Gabon and Senegal. Within the scope of this study, the identified applications qualified by an IDEATION process shall be used to perform the market analysis and will serve as input to build business case of the most promising applications within our AiA FP7 project (2012/2014)
Management model for exploratory investment in IT WGroup
The ability to evaluate these new technologies in a practical environment where their technological value and impact on business and IT operations can be assessed is extremely important. Exploratory efforts should be structured and controlled similarly to other major projects and in addition should be evaluated for use in the production environment. In addition to evaluating the technical capabilities and practical application of the new technology, IT must evaluate the “fit” of the new technology in the existing service portfolio or catalog. In this article, WGroup has developed a new class of IT investment, referred to as “Exploratory,” along with a supporting management model to guide the effort through the evaluation phases and ensure a tight fit within the service catalog.
Similar to Process Evaluation Of Transfer Projects Ppt Final (20)
Prof. Thomas Baaken:Science-to-Business Marketing - A new Model in Knowledge ...FITT
This presentation was held by Prof. Thomas Baaken during the FITT conference „ICT Innovations: Research > Business > Society“ on 10 May 2011 in Brussels.
www.fitt-for-innovation.eu
Mario Cameron: Turning Science into Business: From Research to Market – the E...FITT
This presentation was held by Dr. Mario T. Cameron during the FITT conference „ICT Innovations: Research > Business > Society“ on 10 May 2011 in Brussels.
www.fitt-for-innovation.eu
Clustering and networking activities are relationship-based activities that support sharing and developing of competences, knowledge and methods. The documents within the toolbox have a clear focus on activities in the area of technology transfer. Networking and clustering activities are critical leverages for all transfer activities presented in this toolbox, namely: opportunities identification, IP management, Human resources and focused value proposition.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
The presented Network Scorecard suite is a method aimed at supporting the strategic and operational management processes of networks. It relies on three principles: It is a participatory approach, where the networks key actors jointly define a shared vision of their networks performance. Moreover, its integrated approach covers the management cycle of the network including the definition of a strategy, a plan of action and a scorecard. And finally, it structures a network performance on four dimensions: the benefits to the members, implication of the members, external context and organization. The practice presents all necessary steps to involve the key actors of the network and structure the process.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Cluster Managers have expressed their interest in innovative tools that bundle knowledge and is continuously updated. To meet their demands, MFG has implemented an interactive Cluster Manual based on the Wiki principle. The Cluster Manual gives cluster newbies a ‘basic’ guideline and offers cluster managers an in-depth source for every aspect of cluster issues. Additionally, it documents success stories and best practice examples to build up a repository of internal generated knowledge (‘learn from the best’), gives an overview of the most important literature in the area of Cluster Management and combines all this with the knowledge of experts.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
The Balanced Scorecard methodology is used, to give mangers a tool for translating a strategy or a vision into actions and to reach the set targets. The MFG Balanced Scorecard gives cluster managers a tool for managing their cluster initiatives by defining concrete objectives based on their vision and strategy. The Balanced Scorecard methodology helps to clarify and translate vision and strategy, to communicate and link strategic objectives with actions, to plan, set and align strategic initiatives and to enhance strategic feedback and learning.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Professional tools for cluster or network management are more important than ever as the management plays a decisive role for the success or the failure of a cluster initiative/network. Today there are no general cluster/network management methods available to optimize the management. The presented practices use the Balanced Scorecard method which gives the mangers a tool to professionalize the management and to monitor activities including measuring successes.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
FITT Toolbox: International Technology Transfer NetworksFITT
Many international networks are active in the field of technology transfer and give the opportunity to: be in touch with pairs at the international level, access to training and seminars, exchange of good practices and experiences, find partners or investors, promote an innovation and much more. The choice of the network of which you could be a member can be a challenge. The goal of this practice is to give you a quick overview of the existing organisations, and can be a guide for the choice of such a network.
The presented online cooperation platform was developed to give cluster managers and other cluster stakeholders access to current information and trends. It is set up in form of a Social Network on the topic ‘cluster management’ and offers users/members a central information tool, where knowledge is documented and exchange is fostered. Therefore it is an efficient way to foster exchange between experts, to build up a repository of knowledge including success stories and to present the topic to a broader public.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
The network support services support the networks' sustainability by providing a set of logistics and communication services. Access to these services is conditioned by an agreement between the technology transfer officer and the network and the compliance with a charter. This agreement creates the conditions for a long-term cooperation and a win win situation: the networks gain access to free logistics and communication services, while the transfer officer gains access to strategic information from the field, the opportunity to develop specific partnerships and legitimacy.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
FITT Toolbox: Technology Transfer (TT) CollaborationFITT
The chapter TT collaboration addresses the topic of networking at two levels: Firstly, the added value of participating in networks for people active in technology transfer is highlighted at an international level. Additionally, at a local level, technology transfer network with local actors reinforces their local embeddings and grants a privileged, neutral and legitimate channel for two-ways transfer between transfer officers and other stakeholders.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
The presented case study is about Siruna NV, which has developed software for real time deployment of mobile websites through a dual Open Source business model. Although this model is not widely adapted, this model can be easily copied as far as it helps to cover development costs by the help of a large and free developer community, helps to market the product, quickly, sets a reference in a rapidly evolving market and succeeds in creating value within an open source setting.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Dr. Carolina Garcia Rizo: Commercializing Innovative Technologies: The US Per...FITT
This presentation was held by Dr. Carolina Garcia Rizo during the FITT conference „ICT Innovations: Research > Business > Society“ on 10 May 2011 in Brussels.
www.fitt-for-innovation.eu
The Business Model Design practice supports the definition of a sustainable business model, collaboratively with all its stakeholders. To Technology Transfer Officers this practice proposes reference canvas and tools easily tailored to support most business strategic decision. To researchers, this practice is in essence a way to promote a sound business culture and a set of tools to facilitate the design of a business model. Its foundation from the design science make it practical and result oriented.
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
1. Evaluation of Transfer Projects
FITT
(Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer)
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
2. The context
46% of resources are allocated to the conception, development
and launch of products which will never reach the market or fail
after the release.
Robert G. Cooper, 2000, Ivey Business Journal
How to reduce the risk of spending time, money and
efforts of the technology transfer officers on non-
valuable projects?
2 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
3. Need
Need for a first assessment of the disclosed
inventions on:
technical & commercial potential
the interest of the research organisation to
Credit: Microsoft Office
allocate resources to the transfer.
Necessity to be quick and simple.
Usually followed by a more in-depth analysis later.
Always performed internally whereas further investigation for
protection/exploitation of the invention can be outsourced (patent attorney,
marketing studies...)
3 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
4. Objectives
In the context of public R&D, this first-level assessment has the following
objectives:
To provide a first view on the possibility of transferring the research results,
making the best use of all kind of transfer
With a “return on research” i.e. financial returns that will reinforce the
research capacity
Responsibility to ensure the dissemination of the research results in order to
optimize their socio-economic impact (including employment creation) aside
from a strictly financial, return-on-investment perspective
Given the transversal nature of ICT, commitment to a broad perspective and
to consider all possible fields of application in order to ensure the widest
possible dissemination.
4 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
5. Elements of the process
Methodology
Stakeholders
Outcome of the assessment
5 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
6. Practices available in the toolbox
DETECTION of technology transfer opportunities
AWARENESS MONITORING OF
CREATION ACTIVITIES
‘Quick assessment
tool for business
ideas’
EVALUATION
‘Evaluation criteria’
‘Technology
transfer follow-up
committee’
6 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
7. Quick assessment tool for business ideas:
‘NABC’
Easy method to quickly analyse and develop value propositions for projects
N Customer/Market Needs
A Compelling Approach
B Customer Benefits/cost
C Worldwide Competition
Useful for researchers :
Guides them to write down a compelling, pitchy Value Proposition showing their distinctive
advantage
Makes them aware that the greatest technology is not enough, but needs to be combined
with great positioning and a great team
Useful for technology transfer officers
Good fit in organisations with large deal flow of ‘wild’ business ideas, emanating from people
with few entrepreneurial skills
Easy framework for dissemination/awareness creation
7 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
8. Evaluation criteria
Review of evaluation criteria used in research organisations for technology
transfer
Preincubation entry Incubation entry eval
Early-stage eval eval
n
tion Incubatio
a
Research Development Proof-of-concept Pre-incub Market
Licensing
Focus on Digiteo’s set of criteria for maturation projects & their condition of use
8 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
9. Technology transfer follow-up committee (1)
Focus on INRIA’s committee in charge of:
Startup creation projects
Industrial partnerships with transfer of assets (license or assignment)
Industrial partnerships with transfer of competences (expertise)
Participation to standardisation actions within a transfer action
An open source diffusion of an important code base
Composition:
3 internal persons (including representative from TTO)
3 senior private experts
Credit: Microsoft Office
When: one meeting every two months
9 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
10. Technology transfer follow-up committee (2)
Committee is advisory for the INRIA Transfer department. It gives
recommendations on:
go/no go (TT initialisation and follow-up)
transfer strategy adoption
asking for an opportunity/feasibility study
means allocation for maturation if needed
Process:
Template description of the project built by the researcher, TT officer and Sectorial
TT Associate
Submission sent a few days before the meeting (no late submission)
A collaborative tool allows the follow-up by all the staff concerned
10 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
11. Pros & Cons
PROs CONs
Early analysis allowing the adoption of Difficult to choose the experts, who must
transfer strategy. be legitimate to “kill” the projects.
Increased formalisation of the process, Risk of excessive formalisation of the
leading to the diminution of oral tradition. process. Some flexibility should remain, to
support great, “out of scope” projects.
More visibility for the projects that go
through the first-level assessment. Even if
the result of the assessment is negative,
the TT officers/ experts of the jury are
aware of it, leading to possible
developments in the future.
11 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects
12. Suggested Readings
Link to code book
Invention
inventor
Invention disclosure
Opportunity assessment
Proof of concept
Technology development maturation
Technology transfer
Valuation
Value proposition
Link to relevant websites
http://www.iphandbook.org/handbook/ch09/
12 | 26.03.2010 Evaluation of technology transfer projects