Tech transfer: Europe vs the US – a personal view

Laurent Mieville, director of Unitec, the technology transfer office at the University of Geneva, is in the middle of a one-year sabbatical. He is currently at Boston University (BU), where he aims to work on a book about technology transfer models, organise workshops and write papers about them, and make suggestions on how BU can improve its tech transfer operation.

Mieville spoke to Science|Business about the differences between US and European tech transfer models, protecting IP in a world of increasingly open communications, and the rising role of immigrants in the innovation economy.

Science|Business: You are on sabbatical at Boston University. What are you doing there?

Mieville: There are three things I am doing at BU. One is I want to write a book with a faculty guy from the IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland. I had the project before I came here, and I thought it would be interesting to investigate the US situation. The book is supposed to show the models that are around. But I’d also like to work with BU people on where the existing technology transfer models are challenged. When you do that you define a fringe or a frontier where you get to the limit of the models. One [solution] is that more informal creative settings could be organised.

How you manage that is challenging. So [as a second activity, I plan to] organise workshops around things that are challenging and to write papers out of those workshops.

In the third area, I’ll work with BU in technology transfer to see how I can help them improve their operations. The University of Geneva is similar to BU in its size and issues.

Science|Business: What is the aim of the book?

Mieville: The book is about helping companies to engage with universities. So basically, it is difficult for us technology transfer professionals to figure out the landscape, the diversity, the models, the players in the US and Europe. In Europe it’s even more difficult because the diversity is greater.

The good news is diversity means opportunities for companies to partner with different entities, to find a model they like. But it’s difficult if they don’t get a map to figure out which model they want. The idea was to write a book for companies that don’t know all the details about technology and that want to go with technology transfer and to partner with universities. But they have no precise understanding of who is doing what, which models are there, and figuring out what kind of corporate collaboration they’d like to have.

Science|Business: Are you writing the book from the view of what is going on in tech transfer in the world, or just the US and Europe?

Mieville: The book will focus more on Europe, though I tend to know more and more about the US situation, and I’ve been talking also with Ashley Stevens at BU (executive director, Office of Technology Transfer), as he’s going to be the next AUTM president. We have breakfast every two weeks to chat about the situation [in tech transfer]. But the scene is different in Europe. Our association is not the same as AUTM. It is much smaller, and I think rather than supporting the profession, it supports the professionals. That’s a big difference for us. We aren’t so strong in lobbying as an organisation. The professionals can lobby their own national government or whatever. We’d rather exchange best practices and professional work within a very diverse model.

Science|Business: Europe has been studying the US model for some time. Is there anything going on here that hasn’t translated back to Europe and that would be useful?

Mieville: For most things we now can find something in Europe along the same lines. The difference is the intensity. In Europe the intensity of technology transfer and the issues are not as strong as in the US So if I take one example, we’re trying now to expand professional development more in Europe and offer e-learning and Webinars. That’s already going on in the US, but it’s only now coming on strong in Europe. So I think that the technology transfer scene is younger. Technology transfer offices were created 10 to 15 years ago, and while a few have been created a long time ago, most are still busy setting up the office. European countries are creating models that fit more to their own landscape. In the US, at some point it became a more monocultural approach with variations, basically one country starting in a more homogeneous way. In Europe each country started differently. I like this very different approach, and now I think we realise the differences are very good for technology transfer.

Science|Business: Speaking of diversity, some US states are taking more of an ownership in technology transfer by bringing in new technology companies and investment. What is your experience with these efforts?

Mieville: What I learned from Stanford when I was there is they seem to be a role model, but every university has a different culture and it would be wrong to just take the Stanford model and apply it. What we see also in Europe and in Switzerland is that every university doesn’t always think about how they want technology transfer or knowledge transfer to happen, what kind of models and channels they want to pursue. The economists tell us that beyond the licensing and contracted research there are other channels where industry and the university interact.

One of the big challenges now for many universities is to go beyond the first step of reaching the technology transfer office and having licensing. Maybe they should have more informal meetings, conferences, workshops, teaching, many other channels that are important for industry, too. The problem is that university people who are supposed to do that don’t have the knowledge to do it.

Science|Business: BU’s alumni magazine ran a story recently on open-access publications, postulating that traditional academic publishing in proprietary, for-pay journals may actually hinder scientific scholarship and discovery. The article said BU pays up to $20,000 annually for a single journal, and it spends $5 million a year on tens of thousands of journals. Do you think this stifles innovation and the ability of scientists to work?

Mieville: Oh sure. Universities must make choices of which publication to subscribe to. And the way the information flow is going now, you could really imagine [what would happen] if all articles were available for free. There are some issues, such as people could publish anything, and how you can guarantee quality. Universities are becoming more of a hub for knowledge, and knowledge moves around freely. The challenge is how to help people who like to be in the worldwide information flow to still protect information and scientific development.

Science|Business: Is it wise for universities to encourage spinouts when the financing situation remains weak in terms of venture capital and IPOs?

Mieville: It depends on the ecosystems around the university. When finance is not so strong because of the crisis, I think it would be a mistake to push for spinout creation. Each country in Europe has different support for startups. I think there’s too much emphasis on economic development. People should be looking at the food chain, what is going on with the startup when they grow up, whether they are bought, and try to see the flow of technology, where does it go, and try to keep the company in the area.

Science|Business: Is this a problem in Geneva or all over?

Mieville: It is a general problem more in Europe than the States. One reason is many good university scholars get bored. At some point they may go to the US. One issue in Europe is companies are created, but they don’t grow so fast for different reasons. I think people are less hungry to make it big. People are just happier. They don’t want to sacrifice the family to run a company for 10 years, or so just to make money. Companies grow to 15-20 people, but beyond that there’s a reluctance to grow bigger. If you want to make it big, you go to the States.

Science|Business: Is there still an atmosphere of risk adversity in Europe?

Mieville: One of the issues in Europe is that we lack entrepreneurs. In the US there was always a strong entrepreneurial spirit, but now it is less from US people than from immigrants. If you look at the statistics of people starting companies, we now see Indian and Chinese immigrants trying to make it in the US. The cycle is that to get somewhere, you are entrepreneurial. Once you get there, you are less entrepreneurial. It’s what happened in Europe. In the US, the immigrants, the new people coming in, are creating most of the new companies. In Europe the immigration politics is different. I think there is less incentive for immigrants to start companies. If you just take Switzerland, even though 7 percent of the population is immigrants, 20 per cent of the new companies are created by immigrants. So the share is much bigger compared to the general population. In the US you still are better off because you still have a lot of immigrants. Recent surveys show there are a huge amount of immigrants fueling the economy.

Science|Business: Is mentorship by successful alumni to help start-ups gaining traction in Europe?

Mieville: Mentorship is booming in Europe as well. One of my projects when I go back to Geneva is to [form] a mentorship programme to link with alumni and help young graduates looking to start a company. Geneva just started the alumni program and is collecting profiles of all alumni. I did a small check in the Boston area and found 50 Geneva alumni here. The plan is to work with Swissnex, the Swiss consular in Boston, and arrange a gathering with alumni here. One goal of Swissnex in Boston is to make people aware of the powerhouse of Switzerland in terms of research.

Science|Business: What can TTOs learn from Europe?

Mieville: I think one big thing is the diversity of models. There should be a greater emphasis on everybody’s agenda to be open to new models. Europe is a great place to start an outpost because there are a lot of interesting models.