How do Tech-Sharing & Tech-Transfer Differ?
Thus sharing and transfer are complementary considerations in context of the Missouri Research Alliance's mandate to expand the impact of higher education on the regional economy. NSF's NNUN initiative for regional nano-fabrication facilities, managed through Stanford and Cornell over the past decade, is serving as the pattern for their new National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN) initiative which now includes nano-characterization facilities. It involves the re-thinking of some university labs as open-access "collaboration facilities", something nano-characterization alliance members in Missouri have been doing informally for decades. Some advantages of technology sharing through a nano-alliance analytical support cycle are listed below:
- Infrastructure is in place but widely distributed among willing participants at corporate, university, and institute labs, so that start-up will be fast and low cost.
- Incoming challenges from employers across the state are abundant already and easily expanded, so that tech-sharing via this pathway is a fast way for RAM to accumulate results (and added pins on a state impact map).
- Agreements are from the beginning supported by an ethics of analytical support (which will eventually acquire the same legal status as other forms of privileged interaction), and are also generally easier to standardize if characterization is the primary mandate of one of the participants.
- Facilities and collaborations go directly to the retention and attraction of employers in the state, as there is no invention to leave the state with, only collaborators in the state to leave behind (or gain upon arrival).
- This infrastructure helps both industry and university labs to compete, and to justify their location in Missouri. For example, nano-characterization has been key to a nearly 30% reduction in the cost of RoundUp to farmers, and a factor in relocation of industry facilities (e.g. a Monsanto Indian Orchid group) to Missouri. There have also been times when MEMC was asked to provide insight into problems with competitor wafers, because of regional expertise. State focus on nano-characterization strengths could make it an even larger contributor, than it already is, toward keeping research groups in the state.
Note: This page (http://newton.umsl.edu/~run/mona/tech_sharing.html) is in it's earliest stages of development. Suggestions for existing and new entries invited, as well as on better ways to structure this resource. Although there are many contributors, the person responsible for errors is P. Fraundorf. This site is hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy (and Center for Molecular Electronics) at UM-StLouis.