Episode 123: Modernizing Tech Transfer with Data, AI, and Strategy in a Changing Innovation Landscape

What does it take to bridge the gap between research and reality? Today we're talking tech transfer and innovation strategy.

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Welcome back to BIO from the Bayou at BIO on the Bayou. I am Patrick Reid, Executive Director of IP at Auburn University, and I am joined by Dr. Robert Lowe. He is the CEO of TechPipeline, a market research firm that partners with the tech transfer and corporate engagement community to inform critical decisions facing innovation professionals. Welcome to the show, Rob.

Thanks very much for having me.

Absolutely. So I, I'm going to jump right into some questions. How do you define TechPipeline's core mission today? How do you help tech transfer offices in the university industry engagement community thrive?

I would describe our mission as based on knowledge is power. We support tech transfer offices and tech commercialization activities through market research, data, training, practical insights and articles. So wherever we can meet our constituents and our clients in their journey, we want to do it, but we want it to be informed by knowledge and informed by data.

Got it. So when you talk about being informed by data, many institutions are modernizing their tech transfer systems and tools. And from your conversations you've had with these folks, what are the practical pitfalls teams hit when implementing a new TTO system and how do they avoid them?

Well, perfect is the enemy of good, and this is the history of software, and it's never been more true than today. Trying to optimize all of your systems or just one system for every possible case is usually where offices fail. I think what we're seeing now with the proliferation of new tools and new technologies on the market, you need more than one system, more than one toolbox. You need to have a well-built, portfolio of technologies that match all of the different processes that you have in the office. And it's okay if some of them overlap a little bit. It's okay if there's cases that you can't handle and you have to do it manually. That's completely fine.

For universities that can't yet afford large TTO teams, what are the highest ROI skills or roles they should prioritize hiring or training?

I would probably start with the who, not the what in hiring. So to me, Just like any entrepreneurial organization, player coaches are critical. If you have a small office, that means the person who's doing the license negotiation is also sending out marketing emails. And so I tend to look for people who have a broad base of skill sets. They may not be very technically deep in one area, but can manage multiple hats at the same time, and hopefully can then mentor new people to come on board as they actually do grow their team. I think that's a key skill. You can't talk about skill sets in 2025 without talking about artificial intelligence.

Right.

And so I think, you know, having people who are comfortable with new technologies. They don't have to be experts in AI, but being comfortable in learning new technologies and deploying new technologies in their office is going to be a critical skill set today and into the future as we start to understand how to use AI and how to use other technologies to really improve the speed and quality of what we're doing.

So with regard to artificial intelligence, even in my daily job at IPX, obviously we're looking at a lot of these AI tools and we're deploying them, and they are, I think, a force multiplier. And I'm really trying to talk to the office about using them on the front end, brainstorming tool, maybe a thought partner or something, but don't just give everything over to the artificial intelligence. Do you see any kind of, I guess, pitfalls in an overreliance on some of these tools, especially as tech transfer is a small community? And so to get new people into this profession and to mentor and train them up, as you were mentioning earlier, when we were talking about what kind of person should we find, how do we make sure they're not overrelying on artificial intelligence and kind of do have the basics down?

Yeah, I think the first thing I always think about with AI is trust but verify.

Right.

So we have to start with that. I think the second aspect is having a principled approach to organizing the tools that one might use based on how we think we're going to use them. So I have this 2 by 2 that I often will draw, which talks about the quality or accuracy being really critical versus maybe not as much critical. So if you write a patent very poorly, problem, but there's some marketing literature. If it's like, okay, close enough, that's okay.

Right.

And then there's different ways we might talk about the different axes, but taking the tools that we think we need in our office and kind of plotting them around with those types of variables and understanding what is it that we're really trying to accomplish. Because I agree where you're going, which is I think there is a set of people right now who are just pulling a tool off the shelf, whether it's, you know, Claude or OpenAI or whatever, and just sort of hoping it does this one thing that they do in their job.

Exactly.

You have to be very strategic about the reason that we need AI or it can be a force multiplier is X, Y, and Z. And this is the one platform which can get me there, which means we're also going to have multiple platforms in the office.

And that's how it's turned out for me. But yeah, I appreciate that take. It sounds like we should be very intentional and do a lot of research going into these things. And just because there's some AI component to a tool, figure it out and understand it before you use it. Regarding uptraining of staff members, and not only as a retention mechanism, but obviously to grow the capacity of the office, what are some specific examples of subjects that they should be trained in, or that you're seeing kind of maybe trends?

So one of the aspects of the changing funding environment that we're in is in the tech transfer profession, we are obligated or seem to be obligated to the faculty to help them navigate that too. And so I think training the office on specific entrepreneurship topics, how to get funding that is not the traditional funding path, how to think about maybe starting a company because it's harder to license in this environment for certain reasons. So really focusing on how we can train the office to be better docents or concierge to the faculty to help them navigate this challenging world. That's a big area of training that we're seeing a lot more interest in. With respect to managing the particular aspects of a startup company, the way financing— there is still a lot of financing out there. The way that financing is being provided is broader than it used to be. So we're not just only going through seed round and A round and B round venture capital. There's a lot more different types of non-dilutive funding. There's SAFE notes. There's all these different ways that we can start to build companies up. And it becomes critical that the office understands all of those options so that they can, again, educate the faculty member, but also be better about negotiating licenses, even with a large company, because that's their option value, is perhaps starting a company under a different type of funding mechanism.

Absolutely. Excellent. So we're sitting here today together in New Orleans at Bio on the Bayou. How can universities and cities outside the established hubs on the East and West Coasts, like where we are right now, build credible tech transfer and startup ecosystems? What have you seen that actually works?

Well, I think there's a huge advantage to being a smaller mid-sized city because the relationships between large companies and small companies and universities are closer as opposed to the kind of coasts where—

I love that.

Yeah. It's a giant ocean of people, everyone vying for everyone else's attention. Way back in my day when I was a professor at Carnegie Mellon, you know, Pittsburgh, mid-sized city, we were able to well leverage the fact that there are headquarters and large companies in the city. We could get startups in there. We could have easier conversations about licensing with those organizations. So I think focusing on the strengths of those cities, having really good relationships is a big advantage for mid-sized cities.

Awesome. Well, and having things like Bio on the Bayou too. Yeah.

But this is exactly what we're talking about. It's like, it's an intimate bringing together of the people who are in the region.

Exactly. Yeah. And we got to bring it all together. We, you know, you, high tides lift all boats, as I always say. It's cheesy, but it's true. While you've been curating industry trends, what are the main shifts in the last year that you think will most reshape tech transfer and industry engagement?

There's this big shift towards training and upskilling that I, you know, I've been coming to tech transfer events for about 25 years to give my age away. What we've seen is like offices are really focusing on training and upskilling their staff, partially because the job market is uncertain. And so that means we need to both give our staff more skills that they can deploy within the office, but it's also an attraction to staff. So if they know their office leadership is providing them skills and training that they can continue to build on, that's a great reason to stay. So I think that's one of the biggest trends we've seen is offices starting to really invest in these things. And fortunately, you don't have to go out and hire a giant consulting firm to do it. There's a lot more tools now available. So I think that's one. The other trend, which is almost an untrend, is we are struggling to balance the hybrid, in-person, on-campus.

Oh yes.

In fact, as a small plug, we just published an article about this in Tech Pipeline where we asked multiple directors, it's almost as if you ask 20 directors, you'll get 20 different responses on hybrid. Some directors are fully hybrid themselves, some require everyone in the office, lots of people have versions in between. And so I think we're just still struggling to think through that. And perhaps the most important aspect or observation I guess we need to consider is it is extremely correlated with what your campus is like and what city you're in. So if you're in a small college town far away from major areas, you probably have to be a more flexible office. If you are in a major metropolitan area, you probably can be a little stronger about you gotta be on campus. I don't know that I always hear that talk track from other directors. It's not as if all the cities are the same in their ability to attract people to campus. And so we have to be flexible around that.

Yes, I have dealt with that personally and navigating that, looking for employees who, who are wanting to have remote work and I can't offer it or otherwise it has been difficult navigating this new normal. And I guess you're right. Are we going back to the old normal?

Right.

And that's the unanswered question, I guess.

Yeah, it's also highly correlated with what your campus's specialties are. To be extreme, computer science and robotics professors don't need to come into the office to do research. If you were purely a computer science school, then you probably don't need anyone in the office. You can't walk the halls and talk to anyone anyway. If you have a major medical school, they have to be there. They have to put stuff in test tubes in the lab. So you're going to have to expect the licensing officer to be on campus.

Absolutely. So for a TTO director listening now who wants to modernize their office, what are the first actions you'd recommend they take?

I already talked about this a little, but like continuing to push the training angle. Part of that is because there are a lot of people looking for jobs. There are a lot of offices still hiring. It is entirely a retention program, not just upskilling your employees, but helping to retain them in the office. I think one other aspect we've already covered is starting to think about how is AI going to affect the jobs in the office? Can I be a little leaner if I redistribute work a different way and leverage some of the tools out there? The cost of that is writing a lot of SOPs and communicating a lot of processes because everyone has to use it the same way. So we're talking about microscaling an office to leverage technology, but that means that everyone has to do it the same way. And so there's a lot of upfront cost to modernizing your office in the long run.

Well, thanks so much for talking with us, Rob. We'll be sure to keep an eye on TechPipeline and your work in the future. As always, we will have Rob's contact info and informational links posted in our show notes. Make sure you check them out to learn more. Thank you once again for joining us.

Thank you very much.

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This podcast was edited by Resonate Recordings.