PraxisUnico welcomes the report on the EasyAccess IP initiative released today by NCUB, carried out in partnership with PraxisUnico and commissioned from IP Pragmatics. It demonstrates that technology transfer professionals are successfully seeking new ways to improve the university-business interface, to make universities more approachable and simplify transactions by creating tools that can be used with a wide variety of external organisations depending on circumstance.
The EasyAccess IP initiative is still young and as only a small number of universities, mainly those with internal champions, have engaged actively it's early days to assess the overall impact, and PraxisUnico reiterates that there is no ‘silver bullet’ when it comes to accessing and using IP arising from university research. Nonetheless, the report helps us to understand when and how EAIP can be used to best effect and is useful guidance for those seeking to use EAIP or devise other ways to improve technology transfer.
The report emphasises the importance of the role of people skilled in knowledge exchange and technology transfer to advise, guide and negotiate on the best approach to accessing university IP: a point underlined by NCUB's Rosa Fernandez in her blog post.
The report is available at www.ncub.co.uk/EasyIP as an online edition and a PDF download.