C. D. Mote Jr. University of Maryland • Examining the Tech Transfer (The Washington Post, June 4, 2003) • TechNews.com • Tech Policy Section • Gov't IT Section Tech Transfer C. D. Mote Jr. Pres., University of Maryland Friday, June 06, 2003; 1:00 p.m ET Senior business, government and nonprofit leaders gathered this week at the Potomac Conference, sponsored by the Greater Washington Board of Trade, an annual event where top local leaders discuss major issues facing the region. The conference participants looked to technology transfer -- turning public research and development into private enterprise -- as a key to the region's economic health. University of Maryland President C. D. Mote Jr., the event's co-chairman, will take your questions on Friday, June 6, at 1 p.m. ET. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

washingtonpost.com: Dr. Mote, thanks for joining us. The latest Potomac Conference was held this week. What was its purpose, and what did it accomplish?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: The Potomac Conference intended to bring together leadership (political, private-corporate, university and federal goverment laboratory) to discuss opportunities, barriers and directions to facilitation of creating a more entrepreneurial business culture for the Greater Washington Region.

We have the assets. No region in the country has more assets for creating an entrepreneurial business region. But we haven't pulled it together yet. Why and what can we do about it?

Those were the issues.

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Columbia, Maryland: What achievements can you point to in expanding university partnerships with corporate and federal labs? What work remains to be done?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: The assets of the region are extraordinary because of the masssive federal research lab presence. That is what we have to capitalize on. Also many of the labs have a charge to help facilitate the utility of what they do. Not all however. DOD labs have special restrictions.

However, many of the labs can benefit from closer cooperation with universities and industry and of course the other way around. Labs often have difficulty knowing what the value is of what technology they have, they have no incentive for the developers to pursue its commercialization and there can be legal barriers from too close cooperation. These are issues we need to tackle.

Think too of the value each can bring to the other in a more open system where people are working together.

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Washington, DC: How closely do you work with other university leaders in this region?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Every university is working to broker partnerships wherever they make sense. We certainly do that. Partnerships make sense where each partner brings asset to the table that expand the capacity of the partnership. That can be univeristy to university or university to federal lab or university to corporation or even a foreign country.

We do all of those things. We are quite anxious to develop all such partnerships. In Maryland we are part of a System which facilitates cooperation. We work to develop relationships with Johns Hopkins, a natural ally in many areas. We are not as well connected to No. VA universities but that is not because of any barriers other than inertia.

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Alexandria, Va.: It seems that many researchers ultimately leave the university environment to pursue entrepreneurial rewards. Is this brain drain a threat to universities? Is tech transfer a solution?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Good question. Univeristies need to be a little loose on this problem. Many faculty people, like me, think they can run companies as well as hvae great techie ideas. That is often not true. So univerities need to be free with leave opportunities for entrepreneurers who want to make a new idea happen. We certainly try to be. A couple of years is not a problem. If it is longer term, then a realistic assessment of whether the person will return or whether an adjunct position may be more suitable.

It depends on the individual case. No faculty member is tied to the univeristy in any case. Better to help the person, create an entrepreneurial environment to make things happen, and play the game out in a dynamic environment. So leave, so stay but in the long run we'll attract a better quality faculty member and student if we creat the right culture.

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Washington, DC: If research is being transferred from the public university sector to private business, are businesses returning anything to universities? I don't just mean profit sharing. Are private tech transfer partners being required to invest in basic research?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Cooperation with business is key as we move forward. Business supports work at the university and various programs for students, but we need to enhance business support. Business, generally speaking, will not support basic research. It will support mission oriented, more applied research. Businesses are also often interested in advantage with recruiting which can be gained through being a presence. So the main contributions are through applied research, scholarship funds, and supports of targeted programs that business sees as important for its presence.

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washingtonpost.com: One of your goals is for the university to lead the state in the development of its high-tech economy, especially in the information and communication, bioscience and biotechnology and nano-technology sectors. How has the downturn in the tech sector hampered those efforts?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Development of the university in the new economy is hampered because of the downturn, but not in a very serious way. It has slowed the development but not changed the direction or the need. In a way it might even help a little. The help comes from the 'time out' that results from no money and the need to assess and reassess what we are doing. Others also have more time to look at what we are doing because they are not fully engaged themselves.

The future of the state of Maryland, and in many ways the region as a whole, depends on the University succeeding in its effort to participate fully in facilitating the tech transfer culture of the region. Our research park, the UM Enterprise Campus, is a part of that effort.

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Baltimore: What's your view on University of Maryland professors who also own their own companies to capitalize on their research?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: We need to encourage faculty members to be entrepeneurial in the development of their ideas. We have faculty and even students who own companies through work done on the campus. In our Hinman CEO program which is an entrepreneur's dorm for about 100 undergraduate students, 23 companies have been formed - many with revenues.

We must protect the univeristy at the same time so the handling of the relationship with faculty is treated seriously. For instance, faculty often take a leave of absense during the development stage ofthe company when the time requirements interfere with the execution of univeristy responsibilities. However, we need to allow this to happen otherwise either nothing will happen or everyone will have to leave to execute technology transfer. That is an undesirable outcome.

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Manassas, VA.: In its article on the Potomac Conference event earlier this week, The Washington Post quoted one Maryland official saying: "In terms of our R&D infrastructure, we look like Massachusetts. In terms of our R&D performance, we look more like Missouri."

Isn't that statement a bit of hyperbole? The sheer size of the federal government's research spending in our region, coupled with the work at universities and private companies, would make the Missouri comparison untenable.

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: That comment came from Phil Singerman the Director of TEDCO in MD. What he was saying was that we have all the assets needed to be a great region (in fact we have the greatest assets in the country) but that we don't execute well, about as well as Missouri. Though that sounds extreme most people resonated well with that point. I don't know Missous stats but we don't execute too well. Singerman's points were based on the no. of patents and no. of companies started per million of research expenditures. He was critical of some univeristies and was particularly critical of government labs. Basically, they put little into the commercial economy.

We agree on the assets. We need to connect the companies to the universities and then work on freeing the labs, some of the labs, from their restraints. I have some ideas on this formula.

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Gaithersburg, Maryland: What suggestions would you have for a small business that wanted to get involved with tech transfer at the university or government levels?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Small businesses need to get connected to universities and the labs too. Everyone is looking for partnerships at the right level and with mutual benefit. A small business that was interested in that type of relationship can make it happen. At the university of Maryland, we have an entrepreneurship center, Dingman Center, which would be one place to start. Our schools and colleges from engineering to business to public affairs also try to connect to the community around us. Each has a web access and is always reaching out.

In many ways the future of business is tied to its connections to the education centers for many reasons.

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Bethesda: Will the state be focusing on its strength in the biotech sector, or do you expect your tech transfer efforts to be more broad-based?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Tech transfer will be very broad based. Technology transfer works through the personal connections between the people in volved. This can not be over stated. Relationships between people, between universities and companies and federal labs, between all the players will determine what this region looks like. If the state decides to look like biotech, if the Governor really adopts biotech, then that might be the catalyst to move that agenda. But that has not happened. The governor strong supports business, but we have no state agenda yet. That will probably happen through a commission the governor appointed to present a plan leading to legislation.

I expect the Univerity of Maryland will serve many masters as it moves the tech commercialization agends.

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Falls Church, Va.: Are the private universities in our region -- Johns Hopkins, GW, American, Georgetown etc. -- better at facilitating tech transfer than the public ones?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Private v. public. That's a good question. Basically, it is easier for privates to facilitate tech transfer than publics because they only have to answer to their boards of trustees and have no public oversight. On the other hand they also have less inherent public responsibility too. So it is difficult to say. However, if one looks at the asset base of technology, and the support given by the states to facilitate tech development, it is pretty hard to say that Univeristy of Maryland is not in a preferred position. After Hopkins, UM is the big research enterprise in the univeristy domain. So the stuff is here. The question is how do we facilitate getting it out there.

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Baltimore, Maryland: Will most of tomorrow's technologies come from the state's university labs, or federal (defense) research?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: Tomorrow's technologies will come from basic research. There is no question about that if history is the reference. Basic researach will come from federal government subsidy. Industry won't support it, states can't support it, and univeristies really have no money to speak of - at least any around here. The major private corp labs, like Bell Labs, have faded largely from the scene. So universities and federal research labs, both supported by federal funds, will be the sources of the next technologies. I hope that the society continues to remember that it happens this way.

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washingtonpost.com: Can you some up your efforts in the tech transfer field and discuss some of the major players involved?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: The problem in the region has been its inability to pull together the right agenda for an entrpreneurial culture. What is needed to a few of the right partnerships to get it started. A small number will do. The right partherships have always been between a prominent company with a long-term and committed CEO or possibly owner, and a university partner that made complete sense, to come together to facility a tech development activity. Essentially everywhere you look in the country that has been a basic design even though each region is different and each direction is different.

A second key point is encourage the political leadership to take tech transfer as its state personal agenda. The governors should create their governor's plan for tech devleopment in their states and use their considerable muscle to make it happen. A look at California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and other places shows that has been the successful move. We have not done this.

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washingtonpost.com: Dr. Mote, thanks for joining us this afternoon. Any final thoughts on the future of Maryland's tech economy?

University of Maryland Pres. C. D. Mote Jr.: The technology economy is very bright and our potential to achieve is remarkably strong. We still have a long way to go. There are two principal directions that would be fruitful. One, we need to find and build the right partnerships between a few leaders from business, universities, the labs to work to create a couple of successful businesses. This is about business development more than technology development. Every region that thrives in the country can be traced to a couple of the right basic, anchor partnerships. WE have not done this and it is the most prominent reason we have not got it together.

Secondly, we need to work with the political leadship to encourage it to make tech development and business development its agendas as has been done in states where it has been done successfully.

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washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.