The Technology Transfer Working Party (TTWP) and the Knowledge Management Working Party (KMWP) are two groups of Industry representatives (from commercial organisations, which had previously indicated their interest in products related to animal health and genomics). These groups adviced on Technology Transfer practices, and on opportunities and hampers in knowledge management.
Technology Transfer Working Party
left to right: John Bastiaansen, Derrick Guy, Anne-Marie Neeteson (Activity Leader Spreading of Excellence), Christa Kühn, Badi Besbes (Chair TTWP). Not present: Angela van der Sanden (Technology Transfer Facilitator)
A working party of 4 key members of industries, with extensive experience with collaborative projects, has helped to determine what is hampering technology transfer and to find ways to remove the obstacles holding back technology transfer. This led to a strategy of getting companies involved in research projects at an early stage, so they can have a direct input to make sure results are useful for their commercial purposes, or can be used for further research, leading to commercial applications. One first step to motivate companies to start collaborative projects, was the project partnering event at Hinxton in October 2005, where people from companies and research groups met personally, and presented proposals for collaborative research projects, to attract partners for research needed by their company, or to market scientific results through a company.
Knowledge Management Working Party
Facilitating technology transfer also involved trying to prevent problems. When a collaborative project has results which are commercially useful, decisions had to be taken on who owns the results (intellectual property rights), but not all partners always felt comfortable with the final decisions. To assist in this process, another working party of senior industrial managers created a list with DO's and DON'Ts and useful documents, to be aware of when negotiating a contract, this facilitates a fair distribution and necessary documents to protect the ownership of the generated project results.
Meetings of scientists and interested industries are important means for cooperation. Only when the transfer is successful, the scientific results can be used to improve animal health and food quality, which is beneficial for the companies and research groups, but also for the European consumer.
The members of the KMWP are also involved in the patent watch EFFAB is performing. This to 'watch' patent applications on already running business/breeding schemes/activities or extremely broad claims. Individual organisations participate in a (number of) patent watch(es) and share the cost for the patent athorney and the organisational/administrative cost. When a patent gets granted the group of organisations participating in a watch jointly decides about the steps to take.