Last
month we attended the Netval Summer conference held at the Consiglio Nazionale
delle Ricerche (CNR) in Rome. This conference was organised by Netval, the
Italian Network for the Valorisation of Research. The conference focus was
Creating Value from Research: The Evolving Role of Knowledge Transfer. This year
was the first time the Netval Summer Conference was entirely conducted in
English to embrace an international audience with attendees from all over the
world including UK, Ecuador, Japan, Iran, and many European countries.
After
an engaging opening session led by Netval President Andrea Piccaluga, the
conference format was set with lectures, panel discussions and a healthy flow
of audience Q&A. Some of our highlights included the session by Ernesto
Ciorra from ENEL, who demonstrated the importance of fresh perspectives and how
susceptible we are to pattern bias. Also, Paul Van Dun spoke about the lessons
which can be learnt from the successful knowledge transfer office at KU Leuven.
It was
humbling to see many Technology Transfer Office speaking openly about the
challenges that they face. These challenges are common within Italy and beyond
and are present irrespective of the size of the technology transfer office. The
main challenges mentioned were:
·
The challenge to spend time proactively to identify inventions
·
The challenge deciding which inventions to patent
·
The challenge of negotiating the right licensing deal
Many of the sessions
provided suggestions on how these hurdles could be overcome. These suggestions
included:
·
Elevating the technology transfer office to a more prominent
position in the university infrastructure
·
Proof of Concept funding that addresses the valley of death
·
Holding training programmes to create a technology transfer culture
and mindset (to all levels: students, PhD, post-docs and professors)
·
Spending time on marketing efforts
· Recognising the value of unpatented biological materials