Policy Readiness Starts at the AUTM Annual Meeting
Mike Waring
Advocacy and Alliances Coordinator
AUTM
As the calendar turns to 2026, we expect another challenging year ahead for higher education, and tech transfer as well.
New executive orders are being hinted at. Potential legislation may be marked up in the Senate. And regulatory changes are always a possibility.
While you are not your university's or institution’s lobbyist, your mission is to make sure you can provide that person the ammunition they need to make your case in Washington.
As such, your participation in the upcoming AUTM Annual Meeting in Seattle, February 8-11, offers opportunities to level up on the issues and find ways your office can help broaden the understanding of what tech transfer is and how it makes a big difference in our nation’s economy and health.
Those of you who participated last year in the AUTM Hill Day in Washington know the value of these conversations. Eighty-five AUTM members traveled the House and Senate for an entire day last March, explaining what tech transfer is and how it benefits the nation. The feedback we got from you and from the congressional staffers you spoke with was uniformly positive.
This year’s meeting will offer several such opportunities, starting with my session on Monday, February 9, at 11 a.m. The session, "Finding Allies to Help Advocate for Tech Transfer", will help focus the discussion on using third parties to expand our message of the value of research. Attendees will hear from a tech transfer director, a federal relations officer, and a health technology company to learn ideas from others who have helped spread the story of tech transfer’s success.
On Tuesday, February 10, AUTM CEO Steve Susalka will chat with representatives from sister higher ed associations to discuss how AUTM works in tandem with them to ensure our messages are heard in DC. And there is even a session Wednesday focused on smaller institutions to help them learn ways to tell the AUTM tech transfer story. I invite you to come to each and all these sessions.
Our opponents are becoming more and more willing to take on the very business you and others labor so hard to accomplish. Churning out new discoveries does not happen by chance. We cannot afford to have policymakers at the federal and state level being misled into thinking we are solely benefitting ourselves and not the nation as a whole.
I look forward to seeing many of you in Seattle. Let me know what we can do at AUTM to help your university or nonprofit sing loudly from the songbook about why tech transfer is crucial to American prosperity, health, and national security.