Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences

The relatively new field of Technology Transfer can trace its origins and rapid growth to the economic developments and legislation of the early 1980s, a time when the US was looking to enhance its global competitiveness. While countries like Germany and Japan were exceptionally good at translating the ideas that originated from academic labs into useful products, US academic research results were by and large relegated to mere publications in scholarly journals. Concerned about the non-use of this potential goldmine of ideas, the US lawmakers passed a series of legislation in the early 1980s culminating in the famous Bayh-Dole Act. This Act has shifted the onus of commercialization from a central granting agency to the numerous grantees that receive the research funds, and the grantees have taken very enthusiastically to this shift. The Economist has lauded this Bill as the most inspired piece of legislation in the last half century.

The National Institutes of Health has always been a leader in health research. After the 1980s legislations, the NIH has led the nation in technology transfer as well, having spawned from its research, the development of a number of lifesaving drugs, vaccines and medical devices (www.ott.nih.gov). Both the research scientists and technology transfer professionals at NIH have been responsible in making sure that basic results in the lab get successfully transplanted to the marketplace as useful biomedical products.

What is technology transfer and what are the career opportunities in the field? What are the skills required and how does one acquire them? Answers to these and other questions can be found on a number of informative websites like www.autm.net, www.federallabs.org, www.lesi.org etc. The technology transfer profession employs more than 10,000 professionals in the US with a fairly large number practicing their trade in the greater Washington DC area. We hope that the Certifi cate program in Technology Transfer will serve not only the needs of scientists and engineers who wish to pursue this non-traditional career, but also those of professionals who seek additional training. The course instructors are all respected practitioners of the fi eld. Through this Certificate Program, students can simultaneously gain the necessary knowledge and build professional networks.