I have been emphasizing organizational conflict of interest. Most universities have no policy on such things, and therefore technology transfer has been allowed to make a transition from a broadly faculty-led activity with a diversity of practices reflecting the range of inquiry and personal insights that characterize a university to an institutionally narrow endeavor focused first on championing patent licensing, then bringing it in-house, then requiring it for some inventions, then requiring it for all inventions, and then seeking to force all inventions to happen in-house by requiring ownership for everything, and calling anything done outside a personal conflict of interest.
In essence, technology transfer operations got fixated on the money, and then because there was no check on organizational conflict of interest, made the equation public mission = money.
That, of course, is the same thing as saying, “run more like a business”. Put another way, it says, “to heck with the public mission, this is about institutional self interest. Because the institution is “public” then anything it does by definition must be in the “public interest”. Therefore making money is in the public interest. On with it! Continue reading →