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:
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.
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
Fruitful discussion.
Cecile Henrich-Burkhardt
Technical University of Munich, Germany
The best opportunity to learn and discuss common issues and interests directly with peers.
Ian Nicoud
LURIS, Netherlands
This is a wonderful conference to expand the horizon of my knowledge of tech transfer and commercialisation.
Seung-Ho Lee
Deltatech-Korea, South Korea
Technology transfer is ever changing and a key piece for the competitiveness of your institution, this course is an excellent tool to prepare yourself for that challenge.
Ricardo Castro
Centre for research in agricultural Genomics, Spain
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