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Sally Davenport
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
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Technology Transfer Society 2006 Annual Conference - Atlanta, USA, 27-29 September
The Technology Transfer Society (T2S) held its annual meeting at Georgia Tech's impressive Hotel & Conference Centre. The theme of the conference was Next Generation Innovation: New Approaches and Policy Design. The 100 plus presenters from 16 countries gave talks on a wide range of technology transfer and research and innovation policy topics. By all accounts (this was the first time I had attended the T2S meeting) the quality of the research presented at this conference has improved markedly in recent years and I saw plenty of evidence to confirm this trend.
Formed in 1975, T2S is a non-profit organization devoted to the interdisciplinary scholarly analysis of technology transfer and the dissemination of best practices in technology transfer from universities and federal labs to firms (and vice-versa). The Society sponsors the Journal of Technology Transfer, and the registration fee for the conference includes a year's subscription to the journal, edited by Barry Bozeman (U Georgia), Al Link (UNC Greensboro) and Donald Siegel (UC-Riverside) who is also the current president of T2S.
The conference itself ran in four to five streams giving plenty of choice but not too many conflicts for the audience. The emphasis on entrepreneurship and technology transfer from universities and research laboratories was very poignant given many regions around the world are attempting to emulate the success that some universities in the USA have achieved in creating regional development through commercialisation from scientific research. This interest was reflected in the range of countries represented, for example, including Korea, Ukraine, India, Australia and Brazil. The diversity made for some wide ranging discussions on the applicability of technology transfer initiatives in different settings and cultures.
The plenary presenter was Michael Cassidy, President and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance, a public/private partnership of business, research universities and state government that drives Georgia's strategy for capitalizing on innovative, university-based research and development with the intent to "build a thriving, technology-rich economy". Cassidy outlined an impressive array of investment initiatives which focused on four areas: bringing eminent scholars and their teams to Georgia, building national centres for research and innovation, funding research laboratories and equipment and on technology transfer. The scale of the investment and the speed with which the Alliance was implanting their strategy was probably the envy of many in the audience.
For those outside the USA, the brevity of the conference (1.5 days) might be an issue with respect to distance travelled, but this is a small, well-focussed conference which would be very rewarding for those with a specialist interest in technology transfer, particularly from public sector research. The next T2S conference is scheduled to be hosted by Donald Siegel in California. Watch the T2S website for more details: http://www.t2society.org/
Triple Helix VI: Conference on University, Industry & Government Linkages, NUS, Singapore, 16-18 May, 2007
'Emerging Models for the Entrepreneurial University: Regional Diversities or Global Convergence' was the theme of the sixth Triple Helix conference. Held every two years, this was the first time that the conference had been located in Asia. In his preface to the proceedings, co-inventor of the 'triple helix' metaphor and staunch proponent of the entrepreneurial university, Henry Etzkowitz, listed the conference questions as: 'Can an entrepreneurial university develop from a teaching university? Is an 'external field' essential for triple helix interactions? Does 'taking the role of the other' enhance or degrade university, industry government performance? Must transition between 'knowledge, consensus and innovation spaces' take place sequentially or may it occur non-linearly?'
In his keynote address titled 'The Shift Towards Entrepreneurial University Models in the US: Lessons and Challenges', David Mowery of Haas School of Business (Berkeley) presented an excellent analysis of both the rhetoric and the substantive evidence around the concept. Essentially unpacking the notion of whether a university can be entrepreneurial, his inquiry showed that there was a great heterogeneity of institutional structures (universities are 'messy') and that in the pro-patent era since the 1980s revenues accruing to most universities from IP activity have been modest at best. Being pro-patent, he argued, was a necessary but not sufficient condition for success as is evident in the very small numbers of institutions that have benefited from fortuitous 'home run' patents. Another topical point that Mowery made was that the triple helix and entrepreneurial university concepts both ignored the role of government research laboratories which, coincidentally, is to be the subject of a forthcoming IMPP issue focused on CSIRO.
The strong representation from developing nations, many of which are positively embracing the triple helix and entrepreneurial university concept in the hope that they will spur economic advance, meant that the majority of the papers were very normative (to the point of being evangelical almost) in their findings, which was in stark contrast to the ambivalent US evidence presented by Mowery. In reflecting on the conference, participants perhaps should ponder Mowery's warning to learn from and adapt, rather than imitate, initiatives in other nations. A couple of interesting papers did take a more critical look at the topic, including Phil Cooke's (Cardiff University) interesting paper on alliances between researchers and the food industry, and Juha Tuunainen's (University of Helsinki) fascinating in-depth study of the way in which universities (often unconsciously) resist this entrepreneurial marketisation process.
This was the fourth Triple Helix conference I have attended and they are usually characterised by the interesting range of researchers bringing their different perspectives to the topic of university-industry-government relations. This conference, however, marks, what may be a watershed with moves to formalise the community into an association and to found a journal. The metaphor certainly now has protagonists world-wide with, for example, an Institute for Triple Helix Innovation in Hawaii and an Ethiopian Triple Helix Association! Arguing that the triple helix concept has evolved metaphor to model to movement, Etzkowitz proposed that it was incumbent on the community to create its own voice. Not all attendees were convinced of this - co-founder Loet Leydesdorff, who also gave an interesting keynote address illustrating his wealth of scientiometric data, certainly had reservations - and time will tell if this formalisation will change the flavour of the conference and the community that has supported it since 1996.
The next Triple Helix conference will probably be held in 2009 with the location to be confirmed but Spain was a likely contender. Information about previous conferences can be found at http://users.fmg.uva.nl/lleydesdorff/th2/
The Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM) Conference, Rydges Capricorn Resort, Queensland, Australia, 6-9 December 2006
Hosted by Central Queensland University, the 20th Annual ANZAM was held in the balmy climes of the Rydges Capricorn Resort and the beautiful pools and range of outdoor activities (eg camel rides) at the resort certainly proved a distraction for some! In typical ANZAM style the conference was a good mix of intellectual stimulation and social activities. Word of this must be getting out as the number of international participants continues to increase each year.
More than 380 papers were submitted to the 22 streams which cover a wide range of management topics including technology & innovation management. Most papers are refereed in a blind review process with a 75% acceptance rate for this conference. The quality of the papers has improved markedly in recent years, which is also reflected in ANZAM's publication, the Journal of Management & Organization (JMO - http://jmo.e-contentmanagement.com/). The papers were presented in four parallel streams, alongside a range of workshops on research and teaching subjects, which gave enough choice without too many clashes of topic.
Keynote speakers were Jerald Greenberg, Abramowitz Professor of Business Ethics art Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University, who is renowned as one of the pioneers of research on organizational justice, and Bruce Avolio who holds the Clifton Chair in Leadership and is Director of the Gallup Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska, who gave a very spirited talk on 'authentic' or 'genuine' leadership (and follower-ship).
The next ANZAM conference to be held in Sydney (4-7 December 2007) will be of particular interest to IMPP readers as the two keynote speakers are well known to us. Conference chair, Ross Chapman (UWS), has secured Professor Dorothy Leonard of Harvard Business School who is probably best known for her book 'Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation', and John Bessant who is Professor of Innovation and Technology Management at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London who has published numerous books on innovation including 'Managing Innovation' which is in its 3rd edition and 'High Involvement Innovation'. The conference has already had a record number of submissions so it promises to be another excellent event. Further information about the conference can be found at http://www.promaco.com.au/2007/anzam/.
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