Role and reality: Technology transfer at Canadian universities

Document Type

Article

Department

Office of the Provost

Abstract

Technology transfer offices (TTOs) play a central role in the knowledge translation and commercialization agenda of Canadian universities. Despite this presumed mandate, there is a disconnect between the expectations of government and research institutions (which view TTOs' primary role as the promotion of profitable commercialization activities) and the reality of what TTOs do. Interviews with professionals at Canadian TTOs have revealed that, at their best, TTOs support the social and academic missions of their institutions by facilitating knowledge mobilization and research relationships with other sectors, including industry; however, this does not always produce obvious or traditional commercial outputs. Thus, the existing metrics used to measure the success of TTOs do not capture this reality and, as such, realignment is needed.

Comments

This work was published before Tania joined Aga Khan University.

Publication (Name of Journal)

Trends in Biotechnology

DOI

10.1016/j.tibtech.2010.06.002

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