UQ Ventures, a start-up accelerator at the University of Queensland, has created a new program to support women-led start-ups. continue reading »

The World Benchmark Report 2021/22: Data, Insights, and Best Practices from Business Incubators and Accelerators, has just been released. It’s the 6th Edition of the gold-standard benchmark study of business incubators and accelerators, and Tech Transfer Central is offering it with the bonus report World Rankings of Business Incubators and Accelerators 2021-2022.

This latest edition of the World Benchmark Report utilizes 21 key performance indicators to compare the absolute impact and relative performance of 109 incubators and accelerators worldwide so you can see how you compare while identifying areas for improvement. Here are some of the key areas examined and benchmarked in this 115-page report:

• Investment and seed funding insights
• Talent attraction and retention
• Start-up activities and growth
• Budget allocation
• Service portfolio must-haves
• Post-graduation performance
• Importance of partners and sponsors
• Impact of mentors and coaches

For complete details and a full table of contents, or to order, click here.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is partnering with Microsoft and Micron Technology to give researchers and tech companies access to advanced computational chemistry tools. continue reading »

Ohio State University (OSU) has hired Shereen Agrawal, an expert in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship, to serve as the inaugural executive director of the Center for Software Innovation.

The new center will provide OSU students with opportunities for software entrepreneurship and advance education in software innovation, product management, sales and marketing.

In her new role as executive director, Agrawal will implement strategies to carry out the center’s vision, develop world-class curriculum led by university and industry experts, expand hands-on learning opportunities for students, and oversee the center’s daily operations.

Agrawal most recently served as co-founder and managing partner of Embedded Services, an Ohio-based consulting firm focused on product and commercialization strategies. She has also served as vice president of business development at Columbus-based Root Insurance and executive-in-residence at OSU, in which role she advised student start-ups.

“Throughout her career, Shereen has gained experience launching new technology, leading go-to-market initiatives, forging networks across global technology communities, and developing high-performing teams,” says OSU executive vice president and provost Melissa L. Gilliam. “These experiences, combined with her passion for cultivating community and fostering students’ potential, will be vital as she grows the center’s team.”

Agrawal comments, “I am a strong believer in the power of community and ecosystems and am excited to build this future for global innovation in Columbus and at Ohio State. The pace of innovation and change is quickly accelerating. With the rapid adoption of AI, automation and more, it is more critical than ever to equip students with the skills to not only adapt but also thrive.”

Source: Ohio State University

A detailed article on many opportunities as well as challenges involved in licensing university data appears in the September issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To subscribe and access the complete article, or for further subscription details, click here.

It appears, at first glance, like a no-brainer: Universities, particularly those with affiliated health care centers and organizations, have virtually immeasurable stores of data — the kind of data that companies in the forefront of areas like AI, machine learning, and quantum computing would love to have. It seems like an obvious source of significant potential licensing revenue.

However, “obvious” does not equal “easy,” and the barriers TTOs face in discovering, collecting, and developing an inventory of all the potentially valuable data they have are significant — issues around PHI, regulations, ethical issues with consent, federal agency requirements, quality, and data management are among the biggest hurdles. In fact, many leading research universities admit that they are still in the very early stages of developing strategies to mine this data “gold.”

“It’s a mess, especially for us commercialization people,” asserts Jim O’Connell, assistant vice president for commercialization and director of UF Innovate at the University of Florida.

Where does he see the key challenges? “We’re inherently linked at the hip with the hospital systems and the College of Medicine,” he observes. “Of course, we must deal with patient privacy issues. They can vary widely from lawyer to lawyer, and organization to organization. All hospital administrators want to do is minimize liability” and may not see the potential for licensing as worth that risk.

Then, he continues, there are consent issues. “You can get PHI; people actively involved in clinical trials sign over some stuff, but the consent is not always as much as you need or would like,” says O’Connell. “We had an issue that came up; I had to intervene and said we do not want to be the next [Henrietta Lacks] issue,” referring to the recent case in which a patient’s cervical cancer cells were used over decades to create the immortal HeLa cell line used in many drugs that made billions, without her original consent or any payment. “We need to reach back and get the right ‘OK.’”

Data quality is another key issue for O’Connell. “The value [of the data] highly depends on quality, but people at the front end of the process are not thinking about the need for a quality data set, but about how to help the patient,” he explains. And that, he adds, rolls right into data management.

“It’s a question of opening that up to the public — in what situations? Who has access?” he poses. “It’s not quality anymore, but who handles this, who’s the inventor, how do you make sure it’s not in the public domain? Here in Florida, sunshine laws let almost anyone get access to almost anything. We’re transitioning from ideas being in a lab notebook to the electronic realm, so it even touches on data security.”

That’s not to say that these challenges cannot be overcome, or that there aren’t TTOs that are successfully licensing data. “We track all of these things, and my general guidance is that yes, there is more interest in these licenses, and we are doing more volume in aggregate across all types of database licenses,” reports Drew Bennett, director of software, content licensing, and research partnerships at the University of Michigan.

Duke University is also recognized as one of the more successful institutions at licensing data, and David F. Chang Villacreses, who until recently was assistant director, digital innovation in Duke’s Office for Translation & Commercialization, notes that “there was a post-pandemic bump in [data-related] disclosures and licenses which saw numbers ramping back up again in 2023.”

So, how do TTOs successfully generate data licenses in the face of significant challenges? “Any TTO will tell you it all starts with invention disclosures,” says Chang Villacreses, who ran a software, data, and digital innovation portfolio that involved “a couple of hundred” licenses a year. “When a researcher started publishing data openly, then the TTO learned about it,” he notes. “As [data innovations] became more prevalent, we needed to evangelize — promote internally — and following disclosures make it available for the scientific community, while at the same time finding ways to control the data and potentially analyze if it was licensable.”

Benjy Neymotin, PhD, assistant director of life sciences in the University of Central Florida Office of Technology Transfer, agrees, stressing the importance of educating faculty about data assets that may be of value. “Oftentimes TTOs and researchers focus solely on patents and copyrights,” he notes. “They should also be emphasizing what could be tangible — research tools, datasets — not through IP protection, but through contractual means. Put in some confidentiality provisions and license them out to companies.”

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has launched a new program to connect experienced  entrepreneurs with commercially relevant technologies developed by the lab’s researchers. continue reading »

A team of researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA) and RMIT University has developed a nano-thin material that could be used in wound dressings and implants to fight bacterial infections. continue reading »

A start-up from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is commercializing a technology that could significantly improve the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of home insulation. continue reading »

Rice University has launched a new initiative to support faculty members developing technologies with commercial potential. continue reading »

The innovation system that transitions breakthroughs in research from the lab to the marketplace is constrained by the lack of available early-stage capital and development support. To address this challenge, research institutions and partners have created technology and start-up gap funding and accelerator support programs as capital and innovation support mechanisms. Their models and structures vary, as do their levels of success, and the newly updated Mind the Gap Report report is an essential guide to ensuring your programs are effective in moving technologies forward with long-term impact on your innovation ecosystem.

The Mind the Gap Report is a detailed development guide for current and aspiring university gap fund managers that reviews and analyzes 176 active translational research, proof of concept, start-up, and venture gap fund and accelerator programs operating at 97 universities, hospitals, labs, and affiliated organizations.

Featuring more than 50 charts, figures, and diagrams that are individually downloadable for presentations and reports, this cost- and time-saving resource will provide you with gap fund program strategies to help relieve the bottlenecks in your innovation system. Whether it’s ideas for benchmarking, program development, or stakeholder communication, this report will support your effort. For complete details and a summary report, click here.

Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), the National University of Singapore (NUS), and global investment company Temasek are jointly launching a program to form new start-ups around technologies developed at NTU and NUS. continue reading »