Denmark ‘should do better’ on innovation

Nokia’s Vandrup: “A mismatch between what is possible and what actually happens.”

But these things are all relative, according to Karsten Vandrup, Senior Research Manager at Nokia in Denmark, in his recent book, Innovation og Teknologioverforsel (Innovation and Technology Transfer), a critique of Denmark’s technology transfer regime.

Vandrup says he was driven to write the book because he was so bored of wasting time in contract negotiations with university technology transfer offices (TTOs). “I have been dealing with universities for many years and think there is a mismatch between what is possible and what actually happens,” Vandrup told Science|Business.

“In Denmark, the IPR [intellectual property rights] generation of the universities is extremely low compared, for example, to Finland and the US,” he says. “Danish universities filed 78 patents in 2006. Denmark is a small country, but are we this small?”

…despite the awards

The curiosity is that in many ways Vandrup’s views are at odds with Denmark’s international standing.  For example, the country came in at number two on the Best Biotech Innovation Performance Index published by the European Commission in 2003, is placed fourth in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 2006, and is in the top ten in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index.

More recently the European Commission’s BioPolis report which surveyed biotechnology policy across Europe, lauded Denmark as one of the best countries for biotech policy saying, “[Its] performance in knowledge transfer is outstanding compared to [the rest of] the European Union and the US.”

To which Vandrup responds, “We win all kinds of awards today, but the fact is we pay so much tax no one wants to work here and we can’t attract people from outside.”

For Vandrup and his co-author Michael Alstroem, partner in the law firm Westergaard & Alstroem, a large part of the problem relates to deficiencies in the legal framework for innovation in Denmark. “Industry and academia has to collaborate much better than [they do] today, the politicians say. We look at the current legislation and practice, and see that in many respects, the law doesn’t support this,” says Vandrup. In fact, he believes the law is often the biggest obstacle in the way of successful technology transfer.

One example he points to is the status of intellectual property generated by PhD students who study under Denmark’s joint academic/industrial programme. Vandrup, who has advised the European Commission on technology transfer, says there are no clear rules for what happens to research results or how IP is spun out.

Similarly, university lawyers are not experienced enough, and do not have clear guidelines for negotiating contracts with industry.

Strategy? What strategy?

“When you ask, [Danish universities] ‘What is your patent strategy?’, there is no strategy,” says Vandrup. This extends from how to do it, to who should do it, and who holds what rights, to what happens if someone infringes a patent and you don‚t have enough money to get involved in a lawsuit.

As someone who currently deals with Nokia’s involvement in EU research programmes and was head of Nokia’s R&D collaborations with academia globally from 2000 to 2003, Vandrup obviously speaks from bitter experience. But his views on Denmark’s shortcomings should be viewed against the improvements that have taken place in the country‚s technology transfer processes since 2000, when a law was introduced giving ownership of intellectual property arising from publicly funded research to the institutions where it is carried out.

Vandrup acknowledges the Danish Act on Inventions has made it easier for industry because it is clear who owns university IP, but, he says, there is still no incentive for Danish universities to file or maintain patents .In many cases universities do not have enough money to file patents and will be looking to potential licensees to pay for this.

And, notes Vandrup, academics are still hidebound by the fact that the number of publications they have to their name, and not the number of patents, is what matters in building a career.

Over-inflated views of IP value

But the key issue seems to be that university technology transfer organisations are under-resourced and have yet to acquire the expertise needed to capitalise on their new seam of IP wealth. They have an over-inflated view of the value of their intellectual property, coupled with a lack of understanding of the effort and cost that is involved in commercialising research.

As a result, believes Vandrup, Denmark is failing to realise the potential of a lot of its technology. In the final analysis, he says, the government “owns” the universities and it should demand they do better.

Vandrup’s co author, Alstroem, has been an advisor on contracts between academia and industry for the last 15 years, and lectures on the subject at the University of Copenhagen. The book concludes with their recommendations for improving industrial academic research collaborations in Denmark.

For Vandrup, the preferred model is one where industry takes the lead. “Universities are good on the research side,” he says. “But industry is far better at running projects.”