Senior leaders in both universities and companies rarely have the time or expertise to master the details necessary to manage operations essential for effective university/industry affairs. Yet increasingly, a knowledge-based economy draws universities and companies into close contact and provides significant mutual benefits for university/industry relations. This book shows that there is a path forward. Successful technology transfer helps alleviate problems for university administrators such as: a) diminished political support at the state level for research; b) faculty criticism of resources going to the technology transfer office; and c) discontent from the public for not being competitive.  This book will help the senior administrator see opportunities and make the most of them.

This book describes the operations of a set of west coast universities--including Stanford, University of Arizona, University of British Columbia, University of California (San Diego and Santa Cruz), University of Oregon, and University of Washington -- that established exemplary programs for managing relations between the university and companies. The chapters address how these universities developed operations that manage university/industry agreements designed to develop and commercialize innovations derived from faculty-based research. The authors describe governing principles and lessons learned for sponsored research, licensed technologies, spin-off companies, multi-tenant facilities, industry consortia and community-connect programs. The authors ran university offices that have been and continue to be key elements at the heart of innovation, and our society depends on innovation as an economic driver. Thus, the lessons shared by this set of authors are required reading for college and university leaders.

Chapter 1: Context and Constraints

Chapter 2: University/Industry Research Agreements

Chapter 3: Is Technology Transfer a Winning Proposition?

Chapter 4: Digital Ventures: Managing Software-based Research Assets

Chapter 5: Consortia Implementations and Technology Transfer

Chapter 6: One-Stop Shop

Chapter 7: University-Related Startup Companies

Chapter 8: University-Affiliated Research Parks

Chapter 9: Connecting Science and Business

Chapter 10: Nine Principles for Successful University-Industry Relations

Glossary of Terms