Demise of ACCTCanada reflects the evolution of academic-industry collaboration

The writing was on the wall for those who chose to see it long before the largely unnoticed demise of ACCTCanada last year. The message: technology transfer by universities, and later by colleges, has become an increasingly futile exercise in perpetuating the traditional push model for moving academic-based discoveries into the marketplace. The preferred model of industry engagement has grown exponentially as reflected in the $1 billion-plus value of academic research contracts with industry.

For ACCTCanada — the national organization formed to stimulate tech transfer, train practitioners, establish best practices and develop new metrics for its measurement — the days of heady optimism had given way to the sobering reality that its time as an essential networking conduit for the tech transfer community was sunsetting.

"There's been dwindling interest in tech transfer at the institutional and policy levels," says Ron Freedman, CEO of Research Infosource Inc. "The discussion has shifted from tech transfer to industry engagement in which tech transfer is but one tool."

Founded in 2005 with funding from the Tri-Council's Intellectual Property Mobilization (IPM) program, the Alliance for Commercialization of Canadian Technology (ACCT Canada) was established after the tech boom of the 1990s and early 2000s as a Canadian counterpart to the much larger US- based Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). Yet, even in its early years, policy and practice for the commercialization of university-derived intellectual property (IP) was shifting towards an industry-need focus – the so-called pull model.

The economic recession of 2008 strained ACCT resources as some institutions allowed their memberships to lapse. But the major blow was the withdrawal in 2009 of IMP funding and decreases in financial support from provincial sources. The influx of new members from community colleges and polytechnics, while welcome, further challenged ACCT as their needs were different from universities, requiring skills and resources for a diverse membership base.

"The business model itself was not sustainable. We rely on the academic community but tech transfer is a small part of the academic research enterprise," says Janet Scholz, ACCT's managing director from 2007 until 2014. "NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) was the biggest supporter of ACCT but its approach to tech transfer changed considerable over the time that ACCT was active."

Scholz says a survey of current and past members, government and industry early last year showed that there was "a lot of desire in the community for the organization and lots of good ideas" but without baseline funding from IPM, membership fees and events weren't enough.

With ACCT's effective demise, Scholz says the technology transfer community has lost its national voice, leadership for training and best practices and an effective communications conduit among institutions. And while other mechanisms have emerged, most notably the Centres of Excellence for Research and Commercialization program, the importance of tech transfer within institutions is trending downward. Of the four regional organizations that banded together to form, only one — Springboard Atlantic — remains active. Les BLEUs for Quebec, OnSett for Ontario and Westlink for the Western provinces have all folded.

The rise of industry engagement

"When ACCTCanada was formed 10 years ago, traditional technology transfer was alive and well and healthy. There were 450 people in the profession in Canada," says Angus Livingstone, innovation catalyst at the Univ of British Columbia, former managing director of its university-industry liaison office (UILO) and a co-founder of ACCTCanada. "In the last five years, the luster came off tech transfer while areas such as knowledge translation, entrepreneurship and industry engagement were built up. Ten years from now, everyone will be doing these as well as tech transfer."

Livingstone notes that in Europe, university-industry partnerships and Proton — which merged with the Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals (ASTP) in 2013 — have a much broader remit than traditional tech transfer. Combined with growing industry engagement in which companies are solicited for input and engaged in research projects at a much earlier stage, the face of university-industry relations is quickly evolving to provide a creative synthesis of push and pull.

"We need to get over trying to push our own technologies. Instead, look for opportunities and then find the technological solution from whatever source. (ACCTCanada's demise) is not that concerning to me. Alternatives are coming up so we're in transition. Wait three to five years until the activities required are better recognized and we can provide a diversified product offering."

During his time as head of UBC's UILO, Livingstone built the strongest tech transfer organization in the Canadian university system. Dozens of companies were created and spun off but without adequate financing options, most failed.

"UBC did a great job spinning off companies but there was no venture capital so the companies died and the luster came off tech transfer" he says, adding that UBC's tech transfer activities have been downsized by 30% in the last five years while business development offices are coming up. "With industry engagement you go to sectors to understand their problems. It's a different approach ... It's not technology-based, it's capacity-based. "

The move away from IP management towards industry engagement is reflective IP's diminishing importance in Canada. Marcel Mongeon, principal of Mongeon Consulting and former executive director of McMaster Univ's, Office of Research Contracts and IP, says work on university IP has largely dried up. He views the change as the result of Canada's lack of interest at the policy level and its largely branch plant economy.

"No one wants to play the IP game," says Mongeon. "If we cared about IP in this country, we would be worried about where we finish goods. The feds are not funding anything on the IP side."

With the increase in research contracting, however, the policy objective of increasing industry-academic collaboration is being realized. As a result, both Livingstone and Mongeon say there's little need for an organization like ACCT.

"I can't disagree with universities going for the money through industry engagement and I hope those revenues keep growing. Sponsor companies need to understand how to best extract value from universities," says Mongeon. "NSERC's Engage program has been a major boon, creating huge interest in research institutions by potential sponsors. But it's kept IP people out of the discussions."

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