More than the money

摘要

Technology-transfer offices are learning from their mistakes. So should the academics that they serve. Academic researchers and the technology-transfer offices at their universities have had a prickly relationship since the latter first won a foothold on campuses two decades ago. Scientists sometimes complain that these offices are unresponsive to immediate demands, or that their generalist staff lack knowledge in specific scientific or technical fields. Once they do start working together, researchers too often view the hapless technology-transfer officer as a potential obstacle to the dream deal they had been plotting with industrial partners or financiers outside the university. Yet university technology-transfer offices have come a long way. It is time that truculent researchers recognized their worth and engaged with them constructively, in the common interest of the university and its surrounding community.