Moral Dilemmas in Knowledge Transfer.

Explore the hidden moral dilemmas faced by Knowledge Transfer managers when doing nothing seems easiest—but consequences run deep.

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KT Managers (you) occupy a strange position in their universities. You can often be very close - almost colleagues - to the academics who you serve and who provide your ‘dealflow’ (in the form of useful technologies to take to market).

Yet you act ultimately on behalf of the universities that employ you who will often sign off on potentially large deals based on your advice and ‘due diligence’.

Moreover, you are also on the front line with third parties (businesses and venture investors) who invest in technologies (ones that you have nurtured) with the ultimate aim of making a commercial return on that investment.

95%+ of the time interests are fully aligned (post deal anyway) and there are no issues. However, very occasionally, the KT manager (you!) becomes aware of information that could conceivably result in loss of reputation or litigation. Often this happens after a deal has been signed and in ways not anticipated by the contract.

You will need to decide whether to intervene and how!

Almost always you will be tempted to do nothing on the basis that either:

The chances of the problem crystallising are vanishingly small.
It is someone else’s problem
The information that you have is rumour or unsubstantiated.
You fear ‘rocking the boat’ especially where senior academics or commercial interests are involved.

In this Masterclass, Jeff Skinner describes some of the bigger ‘moral dilemmas’ that he’s encountered or observed in his 40 years in Knowledge Transfer. He puts you in his position and asks what you would do or the advice you would give to his younger self at the time.

Of course, the easiest answer in almost every case is to ‘escalate’ to a higher authority or roll in the lawyers. We will avoid such easy answers by delving more deeply into the consequences of doing nothing.

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