Testing time for Technology Transfer?

“This issue is a topic of debate within almost every tech transfer association,” said Paul Van Dun, director of KU Leuven Research & Development in Belgium, and vice president of the board of the Association of European Science & Technology Transfer Professionals (ASTP). He does not see certification greatly helping those with several years in the profession, and said it would not be the determining factor in who he would hire. “But it is unavoidable. It will happen,” he said. “Knowing it will be on its way, it’s better to take it in hand so it happens in a good way. Input from the field is crucial.”

The buzz over certification heightened in 2008 when US-based Certified Licensing Professionals Inc., an independent, nonprofit company, started the Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) programme under the initiative of the Licensing Executives Society (USA and Canada) (LES).

The aim is to increase the standing of the profession through internationally applicable standards, ethics, and excellence, according to CLP’s Web site. So far, 700 technology transfer office (TTO) professionals worldwide have been awarded a certificate after passing the exam, which aims to test experience and proficiency in licensing and commercialising intellectual property.

The start of a groundswell

“The game’s afoot with the launch of CLP,” said Ashley Stevens, president-elect of the board of trustees of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) and executive director of technology transfer at Boston University. Stevens supports certification and holds a CLP qualification. AUTM and the US Biotechnology Industry Organization are members of CLP’s board of governors, and give input on the exam contents. In addition, AUTM is working with CLP to add an academic module to its test, which currently caters more for technology transfer between companies.

The emergence of CLP has stirred debate within the profession, particularly in Europe. Naysayers don’t think an exam is needed, and that it might actually act as a barrier to entry to the profession, partly because of the cost of taking the test and remaining certified. Supporters contend that it will add credibility, and especially that it will both help younger people in the profession to boost their resume and give developing countries structure and definition to establish TTO activities. “Young persons on average are more in favor of certification than people active for 10 years,” Van Dun said, citing industry surveys. “Millennials (Generation Y) love qualifications,” agreed Stevens.

Anyone with a bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited university and at least three years professional experience in licensing can take the CLP test. To help prepare, CLP’s web site has a practice exam with 50 questions and a list of study references. CLP certificate holders must be recertified every three years and must earn 60 credits by attending licensing-related meetings, such as those offered by LES, AUTM, and BIO; by publishing licensing-related articles; and by presenting sessions or workshops at IP-related meetings or conferences.

CLP’s exam lasts three hours and is offered twice annually, in March and September, throughout the US and Canada. It has 150 multiple-choice questions covering eight areas of licensing knowledge: strategy, intellectual property protection, opportunity assessment and development, valuation, marketing, agreement development and drafting, negotiation, and agreement management. The application fee is $995, plus $200 to sit the exam at an international test site.

When the student is ready, the teacher will come

Van Dun said the TTO business is complex, posing the question of whether it is a profession with minimum requirements or whether it is it an area of activities in which different professions are active. “What are you going to certify?” he asked.

He likens TTO activities to building a house, where the construction people and architects can both consider themselves to be in the real estate business, but the requirements for their jobs are totally different. In the case of CLP, the exam focuses on one segment of the profession, licensing. But the profession includes at least three major segments: contract and legal research; patents and licensing; and tech transfer. “If you look at the three different sections, they are totally different, with different qualifications,” said Van Dun.

“The challenge is that what we engage in is a diverse set of activities,” agreed Arundeep Pradhan, president of the board of trustees for AUTM, and director of the Office of Technology and Research Collaborations at Oregon Health & Science University. “The CLP addresses one element, licensing. We need to have something along those lines. If we don’t do it, someone else will. Then you’d have a set of criteria imposed on you by a body that doesn’t understand the profession or the diversity of the profession. So the profession needs to define the criteria.”

Drilling down to first define the profession and then determine qualifications and criteria will take time. “What is certification and what should it be? If you ask 10 people you’ll get 10 different answers,” said Jeff Skinner, executive director of the Foundation for Entrepreneurial Management, London Business School. Like Van Dun and Pradhan, he believes the certification process should be built from the bottom up, based on information from the practitioners themselves. “I can see immense danger if it is done badly,” he added. “We can’t avoid it, so let’s make the best out of it.”

Van Dun believes it is possible to get a common standard that can be used in different countries. “It will require a lot of talks [and must be] on the condition they are not trying to squeeze out one common denominator,” he said. “There’s not a ‘one fits all’ solution in tech transfer.”

In November 2008, ASTP, AUTM, the Association of Technology Managers in Taiwan, Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia, and Unico announced a memorandum of understanding to launch a global project on professional development in knowledge and technology transfer.

The memo calls for the partners to construct broad frameworks for professional development in technology and knowledge transfer. “Given the rising interest in accreditations and certifications, we feel it is appropriate to explore the demand, scope and the desirability of these approaches within the career arcs, skills and training required by our members,” the MOU says. The group is seeking input, and plans to report results during 2009. Pradhan emphasised that the end goal is career development rather than certification.

A European certification framework

ASTP also is talking with the Certified Transnational Technology Transfer Manager (CERT-TTT-M) consortium, which in November 2008 released a training framework for European certified transnational tech transfer managers. CERT-TTT-M was funded by Framework Programme 6 to address the shortage of skilled tech transfer people in Europe and the lack of any education and training in a field that is recognised across the EU.

In practical terms CERT-TTT-M is helping training providers design and implement courses, enabling tech transfer professionals to develop their careers. There are an estimated 23,000 tech transfer professionals in Europe.

In a survey, CERT-TTT-M found that 50 per cent of respondents would be interested in such training, and they are willing to pay up to €1,800 for one training module. Even more eye-opening, 73 per cent of respondents indicated that it is important to receive a European-wide recognised certification.

The CERT-TTT-M framework has three levels – basic, advanced, and expert – and focuses on seven professional skills: 1. Managing communication, information and networking; 2. Understanding IPR & licensing; 3. Commercial activities and markets; 4. New business development; 5. Negotiating; 6. Project management; and 7. Information analysis.

CERT-TTT-M’s next move is to disseminate activities in 27 member states and get the commitment of at least five training providers in five different countries to implement the training framework, including mutual recognition.

Skinner, who was on the CERT-TTT-M advisory board for two years, said the consortium’s competency guidelines were created using good research gleaned from practitioners. “It needs to be recognised somehow, to move it forward,” he said.

The consortium comprises Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH (coordinator); ASTER S. Cons. P.a. (Austria); Science Technology and Business (Italy); the Department for Productive Activities, Economic Development and Telematics Plan of Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy); the Institute Européen Entreprise et Propriété Intellectuelle (France); the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (Belgium); the Management Center Innsbruck (Austria); the Ministère délégué à l’Enseignement supérieur et à la Recherche (France); the Ministerie van Economische Zaken (Netherlands); Rotterdam School of Management Erasmus University (Netherlands); the State Agency Latvian Investment and Development Agency; and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems.

The advisory panel is composed of: Europäische Patent Akademie (Germany); Highbury Ltd. (UK); LES France; LESI (UK); ProTon Europe (Belgium); Societas Rudolphina (Czech Republic), University College London, the University of Essex, and the University of Newcastle.