Watch the Regents Meeting of Sept. 20, 2022

We now get to the Regents meetings of last week. In this post, we review the meeting of Tuesday, September 20th, which consisted of segments related to innovation and to investments. 

At Innovation Transfer and Entrepreneurship, the Regents continued to follow the progress of an initiative to move the tracking of UC patents to the campuses. As we have noted in prior comments on this committee, there is an element of micro-management. Some portions of meetings of the committee have been devoted to the general topic of entrepreneurship in research and potential commercial applications. That topic seems appropriate for the Regents - although whether a special committee is necessary to explore this subject is a question. 

On the other hand, the details of moving an administrative function seems to be largely a UCOP matter. However, it may be that the Regents - having been burned on computer projects such as UCPath - feel some micro-management, or at least detailed oversight, is warranted.

The Innovation meeting began with public comments which dealt with COVID vaccine mandates, antisemitism, climate change, the Hawaiian telescope, transfer students, undocumented students, labor relations, fossil fuels, and abortion. Some speakers seemed to think that Governor Newsom - who is an ex officio Regent - would be present and wanted him to sign a bill dealing with nursing. Of course, he wasn't at the meeting. 

From the Daily Cal: The UC system’s patent tracking system, or PTS, will be entirely replaced with a new intellectual property, or IP, management system within the next five years. In place of the usual board meeting, the UC Board of Regents opened its September meeting with the Special Committee on Innovation Transfer and Entrepreneurship... 

Committee chair and Regent Lark Park opened the meeting by acknowledging the university’s first-place ranking in the National Association of Inventors and Intellectual Property Owners Association annual report on top worldwide university patent holders... The committee is in its second year of operation and its main goal is to oversee the implementation of IP recommendations, including the transition from the UC Office of the President, or UCOP, operated PTS to a more campus-specific IP management system. PTS was originally developed to handle patent-related financials, but has since been expanded to include patent management as well, which are typically two independent systems. As each campus is highly unique, the new system will assign more roles and responsibilities to individual campuses, with UCOP assuming a more advisory role... 

The Investments Committee also met Tuesday to discuss the university’s performance for fiscal year 2021-22 and next steps in this regard. The committee first reviewed inflation and past performance, then discussed future investment strategies, particularly on a global scale. Notably, UCOP chief investment officer and vice president of investments Jagdeep Singh Bachher was a proponent of divesting internationally and investing more in the United States...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/2022/09/20/uc-regents-to-replace-systemwide-patent-tracking-management-system.

Berkeley economics professor Christina Romer - an advisor to the Investments committee - spoke about the macroeconomic outlook, specifically inflation issues and the threat of recession. Of course, the elephant in the room was the drop in the stock market and its effect on the various university funds. The pension fund suffered a 10.8 percent loss in the year ending June 30, 2022.

You can see the September 20th meeting at:

https://archive.org/details/special-committee-on-innovation-transfer-and-entrepreneurship-9-20-22.

The Innovation committee is at:

https://ia801509.us.archive.org/0/items/special-committee-on-innovation-transfer-and-entrepreneurship-9-20-22/Special%20Committee%20on%20Innovation%20Transfer%20and%20Entrepreneurship_part1_4.mp4

The Investments committee is at:

https://ia801509.us.archive.org/0/items/special-committee-on-innovation-transfer-and-entrepreneurship-9-20-22/Investments%20Committee.mp4.

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You can hear the text above at the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/regents%209-20-22.mp3

Errata: In our coverage of Day 1 (September 20) of the Regents, we listed the topics covered in public comments. There was a confusion between Day 2 and Day 1. The Day 1 list should have been greenhouse gas and climate issues, Hawaiian telescope, labor relations, and anti-abortion. The Day 2 list was instead included for Day 1. Day 2 topics were COVID vaccine mandates, antisemitism, climate change, the Hawaiian telescope, transfer students, undocumented students, labor relations, fossil fuels, and abortion. Some speakers seemed to think that Governor Newsom - who is an ex officio Regent - would be present and wanted him to sign a bill dealing with nursing. Of course, he wasn't at the meeting.