The importance of technology transfer during COVID-19
IN-PART Co-founder
With a third of the world in lock-down, the identity of those in our society playing a pivotal role has never been so stark, from healthcare professionals and the all-important people making hospitals tick; to staff in shops where we can buy food, and indeed, farmers and those enabling their shelves to be stocked.
Much of the world’s population is reprioritising the value of the workforce, and how inconsequential many everyday “necessities” now seem. Of all disciplines and vocations reappraised, scientific researchers are in the spotlight, elevated, as they develop tools to protect humanity and tackle COVID-19 directly.
I started IN-PART while working as a postdoctoral Immunologist, with my close friend Patrick Speedie due to our shared vision of wanting to see more outputs from university research becoming real-world solutions. Over the past 6 years, we’ve been proud to facilitate many connections (over 7000 in fact) between research institutions and companies capable of translating research into impactful innovations, and now the connection between the two worlds of academia and industry has never been so crucial.
We have seen a rallying response against COVID-19 by technology transfer offices around the globe, a testament to which is more than 110 new technology briefs relating to COVID-19 which have been submitted to IN-PART in the past 4 weeks, ready for partnering.
We have just released a directory of COVID-19 research and innovations online, linked to their full posting on IN-PART, which can be accessed by professionals in companies with an R&D function without any cost.
The influx of new technology from universities in our network and the appetite of companies reviewing them and actioning partnering requests has been staggering, and in just 4 weeks, 25 partnerships have been established between academia and industry via our system to combat COVID-19.
Human ingenuity will triumph, as it has done before, and it stirs many to think of what mankind can achieve when united by a common goal. Alongside many others across different sectors playing a role in this crisis, our continuing part will be to help ensure research reaches people capable of creating solutions.
Additional COVID-19 resource and innovation resources & content:
- COVID-19 Research and Innovation Directory
- COVID-19 call for research: Calling all universities, institutes and academic researchers
- COVID-19 call for research: Is your company working on solutions or treatments?
If you have any questions or want to speak with our team about any of the work we’re doing in response to COVID-19, send a message to: alex@in-part.co.uk.
About IN-PART:
To help get discoveries and breakthroughs out of the lab and onto the market, we’ve simplified the initial connection between academia and industry through two solutions:
IN-PART, an online matchmaking platform for university-industry collaboration.
250+ universities and research institutes around the world currently showcase their research and innovation on IN-PART to find new collaboration partners in industry. R&D teams get free access to the platform (create an account here). There are no hidden costs and we don’t claim downstream fees.
Discover, a bespoke scouting service for open innovation.
Through Discover, corporate R&D teams can leverage our extended academic network, which reaches multiple teams across 1,200+ universities and research institutes worldwide. In response to a specific research requirement or challenge, Discover enables R&D teams to identify new opportunities for commercialisation or to solicit proposals for new research.
Copyrights reserved unless otherwise agreed, IN-PART Publishing Ltd., 2020
Blog: ‘ The importance of technology transfer during COVID-19’
Image credits:
Header: CDC / Unsplash (CC0)
