Survey of STEM Faculty in Higher Education, Experience of the Technology Transfer Office

Survey of STEM Faculty in Higher Education, Experience of the Technology Transfer Office

Dissatisfaction was highest among faculty in the smallest schools with more than 23% of those at institutions with fewer than 2,500 students expressing dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction was also high among faculty with lifetime grant levels of between $2 and $10 million, of whom nearly 32% expressed dissatisfaction. Engineering faculty also expressed particularly high levels of dissatisfaction.

This study looks at how STEM oriented faculty at approximately 100 colleges and universities, primarily research universities and medical schools, view their technology transfer office.  Faculty evaluate the perceived skills of the tech transfer office in a myriad of areas, including but not limited to skill in communicating with faculty, commercial acumen, advice in filing technology disclosure report, patenting and licensing expertise, provision of incubation space, and many other areas.

The report presents detailed data on exactly who uses the tech transfer office and how often, with detailed data no those that have ever consulted a tech transfer officer.  It also defines exactly who thinks that the tech transfer office should be better funded, or not, or better staffed, or not.  Overall, the study gives its readers a highly detailed view of how faculty react to the tech transfer office, that they think it does well, not well, what they want from it in the future, and how and how much their university should support the tech transfer office.