We're catching up with the Regents' most recent off-cycle meeting of the Special Committee on Innovation Transfer and Entrepreneurship. As always, we preserve the recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents - for no good reason - delete them after one year.
This particular special committee, as we have noted in past coverage, seems to be an exercise in more detailed micro-management than seems desirable, given the host of other matters facing the university. However, the Regents can do what they like - and they do.
One difference between this committee's meetings and others is that the public comments segments tend toward bland puffery of local entrepreneurial activities. All the controversies that are typically raised at other public comments sessions - abortion, union negotiations, etc. - are absent. The only comment on a controversy this time was one regarding an economic research center at UC-Riverside. So one has to conclude that this committee just doesn't attract interest from the general public.
In the regular session of the committee after public comments there was a presentation on entrepreneurial activity at UC-Irvine. Afterwards, it was announced that there would be an Entrepreneurial Council set up that would mentor faculty on setting up companies. Funding strategies for taking academic research to market were discussed. As an example of valuable research, there was a presentation on research on treatments for Huntington's disease.
The committee turned to discussion of the patent tracking process which seems to be shifting from centralization at UCOP to the campus-level. Since this is a computer-based process, there is some nervousness that we don't slip into the kinds of fiascos that have characterized such endeavors in the past - such as UCPath. Finally, it was reported that conflict of interest and disclosure policies at UCOP are being revised.
You can watch the session at:
No comments:
Post a Comment