Want to Maximize the Impact of Your TTO's Metrics? Share Them

Tech transfer professionals can learn a lot from AUTM’s surveys and databases about their office’s metrics and those of similar institutions. But many tech transfer offices find that one of the best things about AUTM’s data is being able to share it with their institution’s leadership, researchers and the public.

Following the release of the 2022 Licensing Survey results, UGA Innovation Gateway (the University of Georgia’s intellectual property licensing and startup support arm) was one of the first TTOs to promote the findings—highlighting the number of UGA-developed technologies that became commercially available during the survey reporting period as well as number of active licenses with industry, patent licenses, licensing revenue and number of operational startups.

“The Licensing Survey allows us to publicly recognize and highlight the products and startups of UGA researchers and inventors, as well as the hard work from our licensing and startups team,” said Brandon Ward, Public Relations Specialist for UGA Innovation Gateway. “The data we obtain is a great way to spread the message that UGA research and innovation is having a real impact.”

In addition to promoting their successes to the public, AUTM data can also benefit TTOs’ in communicating with institutional leadership—showcasing their clear successes, providing context for metrics that could be misinterpreted and managing expectations for the future.

After the release of the FY22 Licensing Survey, Vanderbilt University’s Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization underscored its record-setting adjusted gross income numbers for that year in an article that also detailed the TTO’s continued success in the just-completed 2023 fiscal year.  

Chris Hall, Director of Licensing at Vanderbilt, noted it was helpful when communicating with university leadership to be able to frame certain FY2022 metrics in relation to those of other institutions using the Statistics Access for Technology Transfer (STATT) database, which includes more than 30 years of Licensing Survey data.

“One example highlighting use of Licensing Survey data to inform leadership and identify an area of improvement is our recent assessment of new invention disclosure received per $100 million in total research expenditures,” Hall said. “Like most universities, disclosure rates at Vanderbilt were affected by the pandemic, but STATT data indicate that our rates did not rebound as much as other universities, and our ratio of disclosures to research expenditures is below the norm. However, STATT data also indicated that we were still on par with our peers for patent applications filed and patents issued, and were favorable for the number of total licenses and options executed for the size of our organization. The survey data helped provide that holistic picture of office performance as a whole, rather than merely focusing on a single metric.”

Similarly, communicating trends identified using the STATT database can help institutional leadership better understand what can might be expected from a TTO in the future.

“The AUTM Licensing Survey findings and AUTM STATT database help us quantify impact by providing a robust, objective context in which to assess our university’s tech-transfer productivity,” said Kyle Siegal, executive director and chief patent counsel of Skysong Innovations, Arizona State University’s exclusive technology transfer and intellectual property management organization, which promoted its metrics for inventions, patents, licenses and startups in AUTM’s 2021 Licensing Survey. “They also can help us reasonably project future scenarios. For example, they help us understand what quantitative outputs one might reasonably expect from our office after our university’s research enterprise reaches a certain size.”

When it comes to TTO communications, AUTM Survey data don’t just provide useful content. They also can help determine whether the TTO’s current outreach to faculty researchers is sufficient.

“AUTM resources help us demonstrate that our faculty outreach programs are effective when examined through the industrywide lens provided by AUTM’s data sets,” Siegal said.

At Vanderbilt, some of the FY22 metrics inspired action—which the university’s FY23 numbers suggest has already paid off.

“The disclosure data in the AUTM Survey provided us with the impetus to develop programs to raise awareness among our faculty, thus increasing the rate of disclosures in the current fiscal year,” Hall said.