UWO joins technology transfer consortium

The University of Western Ontario has teamed up with three other nearby universities to boost efforts to put academic research into the marketplace. UWO has signed a deal to form a technology transfer consortium with the University of Waterloo, the University of Guelph and McMaster University in Hamilton. The consortium is designed to bolster the lucrative business of licensing academic research in areas such as technology and pharmaceuticals to private companies that develop products for the marketplace. Alex Navarre, Western's director of technology transfer, said by joining forces the partners in the consortium will gain more clout in making deals with private-sector partners and more credibility in applying for government funding. "We are not in competition with these other universities. The real challenge we have is the worldwide search to find the right partners," said Navarre. He said the consortium will be the first of its kind in Canada. "Together we can have some of the same stature as giants like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," he said. Despite the collaboration, Navarre said revenues or government funding that flow from the consortium will go back to the institution where the research is actually being done. The consortium hopes to expand by recruiting other universities in Southwestern Ontario. Source: "UWO joins technology transfer consortium" by HANK DANISZEWSKI, Free Press Business Reporter. October 21 2004.