During November I was able to attend two events in Bangkok, looking at Knowledge and Technology Transfer. It brought together 41 people from 27 national associations for Knowledge and Technology Transfer to share best practice.

This is indicative of the global interest in supporting innovation ecosystems and the central and the evolving role of TTOs in creating economic and societal value. The first was the annual Knowledge and Technology Transfer Leadership Summit, jointly organised by AUTM and WIPO.

We heard a keynote from Marco M. Alemán, WIPO’s Assistant Director General for IP and Innovation Ecosystems, underlining the importance of on building knowledge-led transfer for institutional and ecosystem impact.

Shared principles and approaches in Global Technology Transfer:

I had the privilege of moderating an international panel on creating effective technology transfer, with contributions from Italy, New Zealand, and the USA. We explored new approaches anchored around:

• 6Ps: propositions (ideas) people, programmes, places, pounds (money) and policies.
• 3Ds: demand/pull, development/translation, defining the third mission.
• 2Cs: community and connection, with Kathy Ku, who ran the Stanford TTO for 20 years underling the value of national associations.

Furthermore there continues to be a great deal of interest in the UKs approach to spin outs following the government review. Mainly, due to the subsequent progress we have made on the spin-out register, shared TTOs, equity position and university-investor relations.

We also heard the WIPO share their thoughts on an institutional competency framework. Which I am happy to say relates strongly to the ideas already being deployed in the UK with our metrics work, Knowledge Exchange Framework and KE Concordat.

The second event was the WIPO Thailand Innovation Policy Forum which was a reminder of the power of national communities coming together to share best practice and build a common understanding of how to deliver innovation in their own context.

I was invited to moderate a panel on: “What constitutes an appropriate size and quality of Knowledge/Technology Transfer Offices (K/TTOs)? Key factors and support mechanisms.”

Here’s a look at what we explored:

• What’s needed to set up and grow a TTO.
• The challenges of starting from scratch.
• How to measure success.
• The importance of training, funding, and collaboration.

What struck me most was:

• How each country tailors its approach to local culture, economy, and opportunity
• How they are all working with the same ingredients to make innovation happen, just the availability of those ingredients and the recipes used varies where you are in the world.
• How looking for a neat comparison of which country is doing best is hard as a good comparison depends on similarity in the factors above alongside the maturity of the system

In the UK, we shouldn’t take for granted the decades of progress we’ve made as demonstrated by:

• 50 years of KTPs, bringing together businesses and universities.
• 40 years of universities managing the IP arising from their research.
• 25 years of data collection at on Business and Community engagement at a national level for universities.

All in a system involving research organisations, funders, industry and investors that has evolved over that time to include a broadening of scope and to include all academic disciplines and a breadth of pathways.

Overall, the UK is well-placed to have many of the ingredients needed and a collaborative effort across funders, investors, research organisations and investors to continue to develop our ecosystem and ultimately deliver economic and social benefit through the application of ideas for impact.