Knowledge transfer and business development professionals work with several audiences at once: researchers who need to commit, industry partners who need to see risk and return, and investors who look at scale and exit. The same scientific result lands differently with each of them, and the message that is sent is rarely the message that is received. Once a deal is on the table, a second problem appears: negotiations and partnerships stall because the parties never made their expectations explicit. Think of unclear points of contact, different assumptions about timelines, or a partner who expects to co-decide while the other side only plans to inform.
Many deals in knowledge transfer do not fail on the science or on the legal text. They stall on misaligned messages and unspoken expectations, which costs time, goodwill and sometimes the deal itself. Knowing what each audience is actually "buying", and surfacing expectations before the negotiation starts, is a skill that KTO professionals use every day but rarely get structured training in.
This masterclass combines short input blocks with two practical group exercises. Input covers the sender-receiver model of communication, expectation management, a pitching method including the Feature-Advantage-Benefit-Proof (FAB(S)) chain, and five types of expectations (deliverables, timelines, quality, communication, involvement) with their priorities per party. Illustrative examples and realistic case patterns from licensing and co-development deals are used throughout. The goal is that participants leave with tools they can apply in their next pitch and their next negotiation.
This masterclass is designed for knowledge transfer officers, business developers, licensing and partnership managers and related professionals at universities, research institutes and hospitals, from early career to senior level. No prior knowledge is required, so you can join with confidence whatever your background.
By the end of the masterclass, participants will be able to:
The software course has provided invaluable information as our TTO expands to take on software cases.
Tom Withnell
University of Vienna, Austria
International presence is amazing, so many countries, universities... represented here!!
Christian Massus
SATT Aquitaine, France
ASTP Annual conference is a unique opportunity to take time to exchange best practices among TT professionals and to network at an EU level.
Cécile Cavalade
ULB TTO, Belgium
I strongly recommend the course, even if you are not going to set-up an office but you are part of the team that wants to change or improve how technology transfer is done at your institution.
Ricardo Castro
Centre for research in agricultural Genomics, Spain
A must-do for any staff involved in technology transfer and start-up creation.
Frederic Ratel
Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia, Spain
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