The evolution of technology transfer in Ireland 2006–2016: a practitioner’s perspective

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to share the experience of the development of Technology Transfer in Ireland from the perspective of a Technology Transfer Director who set up the first Tech Transfer Office (TTO) in the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) in 2007, just as Ireland was about to enter an economic downturn and later set up TTOs in five other Institutes in Dublin as Ireland began its recovery.

Despite the downturn in the economy and the slow recovery over the last decade, the Technology Transfer ecosystem in Ireland has flourished. This paper presents what has been learned over the decade that may be beneficial to others who are about to embark on a similar journey. It also hypothesizes on how the ecosystem is likely to continue to evolve into the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge transfer
• technology transfer
• Ireland
• evolution of KT
• the future of knowledge transfer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Tom P. Flanagan is the Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation at University College Dublin. He has responsibility for NovaUCD, the premier start-up incubator in Ireland, NexusUCD, a unique on-campus collaboration space for companies engaged in research activities with the University, and ConsultUCD, a new managed consultancy service, which has been established to facilitate access and support the engagement between industry and UCD. He previously worked in the UK, Canada and the US in various roles in product design, marketing and sales and led a $100 million/year consulting and systems integration business as Vice-President for Canada and Central US at Nortel. He returned to Ireland and established a successful management consulting business before joining DIT as Head of Innovation. He created Hothouse, the first Innovation and Knowledge Transfer Centre at DIT. Hothouse has helped entrepreneurs to develop over 400 sustainable businesses, raise €195 million in investment and create 1700 jobs. He also launched the Dublin Region Innovation Consortium successfully commercializing research for five other institutions: ITTD; ITB; IADT; NCI and DIAS, to deliver over 140 licences and 30 spin-out companies, and was seconded to Knowledge Transfer Ireland to review the National IP Protocol and contribute to the Irish Government’s 5-year strategy Innovation 2020 through his work on the Government’s Research Prioritisation panel.