Tech transfer in Central Europe – the reality and the hope

When the Warsaw Pact dissolved, there was much talk in the West about tapping into a treasure-trove of top-secret technology – in materials, rocketry, and other fields in which the East had concentrated its Cold War scientific resources.

All naïve, it turned out: As Boeing, Pratt & Whitney and other Western multinationals learned to their cost, whatever technology did exist in the region wasn’t easily transferable – to them, or anyone else. The region’s research institutions were designed to solve technical problems in a command economy, not conduct broad R&D programmes with unpredictable spin-offs to a market economy. Those scientists who understood the new world left for better-paying work in the West, while those who stayed behind struggled to make ends meet.

But that’s starting to change. With EU accession has come millions in grants for research and infrastructure – and a gradual shift in attitudes. Collaboration with industry, while still infrequent, is becoming socially acceptable on some university campuses.

For a glimpse of this, Science|Business publishes a first-hand look at the state of tech-transfer in Prague. Michal Brnušàk is a young team member in a tech-transfer programme at the Czech Technical University in Prague. The programme, called Tripod, began with EU funding and is evolving into a tool for helping CTU researchers get their technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace. But progress is slow. There have been, in recent years, just two small spin-outs from the university: a computer-vision start-up called Eyedea Resolution Ltd and a biomedical contract researcher called Clever Technologies. Brnušàk’s analysis for Science|Business makes clear the problems and possibilities.

Michal Brnušàk: winning back trust.

More visible commercial activity happens in a number of research centres that have gradually built a position almost independent of the university. These centres usually have a lot of experience with applied research for commercial companies and tend to draw the best students. Departments without such a centre face increasingly low numbers of PhD applications as the vast majority of their students leave immediately after graduation.

However, there are senior and experienced faculty members who are simply treasure chests of knowledge but have no idea that it could be put to use in industrial collaboration or are simply not interested. You can only imagine the ideas that lie in their drawers. Then there are lots of (usually younger) faculty members who are involved in various research projects but feel the lack of proper support from the university when it comes to collaboration with industry. This can be very frustrating, especially when considering that one could be working for a company, gaining a hands-on experience (instead of theorising), and earning much more money.

So, the need has been here and it is becoming increasingly pronounced now that more and more researchers get to visit Western countries and see how other universities deal with industry relations and technology transfer.

Here comes Tripod

The Tripod project is a grassroots initiative founded by a young CTU researcher, Dr Jaroslav Burcik. He decided to respond to the needs of his fellow researchers by establishing a support organisation that would help them turn their ideas into reality. The project has been active since 2006; however, there still remain a number of principal barriers that need to be overcome. Over time, many researchers have become suspicious of organizations talking about the need for change but failing to deliver on their promise. We have to get their trust back. Another principal problem is that in a university of CTU’s magnitude and organisational structure, it is extremely difficult to get our message to the right people.

Activities

Therefore, one of Tripod’s main activities is organising events and meetings to spread the word. We regularly bring in people from industry to encourage entrepreneurial thinking in students and members of the academia. We also organise meetings between university management and consultants in the area of technology transfer and science parks.

Another set of activities is centred on the scientists. We promote their results via web and other media and at exhibitions and trade fairs both in the Czech Republic and abroad. Our public relation services for scientists also include copywriting, proofreading and translation of promotional materials. We also provide researchers with presentation and managerial skills and knowledge of IP protection through a system of training courses organised together with our partners. All of this leads to two aims that we are trying to achieve: that the scientists become more capable at dealing with industry, and that we gain their trust, which is vital for building further cooperation.

Yet another set of activities is focused on the industry. In order to be helpful to companies approaching the university, we have to have an excellent knowledge of what the university can offer and who the right people are to solve specific tasks within the set time and at a reasonable price. This comes down to profiling researchers at CTU, and subsequently editing, storing, updating, and promoting this information. We are planning to make the profiles available through our website at www.3pod.cz. As of now, we have distributed it on a CD, whose third updated edition was sent to 1,000 companies in the Czech Republic at the end of November 2007. In addition to having done qualitative research in selected companies, we are now putting up a web-based survey asking companies about their experience with the university. This survey should result in identifying problem areas on which we will focus our attention in the future.

All Tripod’s offers are free of charge. This is made possible due to the support from the European Social Fund of the Czech Republic.

Future

Right now, Tripod is in the middle of establishing an industry liaison office at the CTU’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Initially, this office will not deal with technology transfer as such, but will be responsible for a broad spectrum of activities on the interface between the Faculty and the outside world. This primarily means joint (faculty plus company) projects and research collaborations financed from European and national grants. The new centre will contain a grants office providing consulting services concerning financing issues to both parties. Later, a venture capital fund may be established in collaboration with the most loyal partners of the office. This centre has a vision to become a full-blown TTO for the whole university.