Working Group on Technology Transfer and IP

Advancing the Public Interest

Universities have a responsibility to be good stewards of discoveries and intellectual property developed from research supported by federal funding. In recent years, however, some critics have asserted that universities’ technology transfer operations place too much emphasis on maximizing revenues and not enough on moving new ideas quickly into the marketplace, where they can advance the public good.

In October 2014, the Association of American Universities (AAU) formed a working group on technology transfer and intellectual property with the task of reaffirming that the primary goal of university technology transfer operations is to advance the public interest. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) has created the APLU Task Force on Managing University Intellectual Property for a similar purpose.

Read the working group's Statement on University Technology Transfer and Managing Intellectual Property in the Public Interest.