University of Maryland Accelerates Pace of Innovation, Technology Transfer

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - On the day President Obama signed into law the America Invents Act, the University of Maryland continued to accelerate its efforts to move the fruits of its research to market. Maryland President Wallace D. Loh has made innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology transfer a pillar of his new administration.

UPDATE: The U.S. Economic Development Administration has awarded the University of Maryland $500,000 to support research commercialization and entrepreneurship. The Urban Studies and Planning Program in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation will develop a detailed Maryland-wide "innovation map" incorporating extensive data to help pinpoint innovation "hotspots" and likely future business opportunities. The grant will also help advance the Morgan Mile development project in Baltimore.

At his inauguration this year, Loh committed more funds to the task, announcing the creation of a new Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. As envisioned, the center will increase twelve-fold the resources spent by the university to develop promising research, providing a "one-stop concierge service," coordinating "under one umbrella the many idea-generation and venture creation activities on campus," Loh explained.

Since 2002, University of Maryland research has spawned roughly 40 firms. The University has now embraced an ambitious goal of creating 100 new firms within a decade.

In April, 2011 the University of Maryland joined more than 130 other national research universities in signing a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce expressing the university's intention to develop and enhance campus-based activities relating to entrepreneurship, technology commercialization, and economic development.

The University's new vice president for research, Patrick O'Shea, is developing an aggressive plan to build the school's regional, national and global research profile, with an emphasis on multidisciplinary, large-scale collaborations with industry and government. O'Shea promises greater rewards for faculty innovation, and new initiatives to encourage entrepreneurship, tech transfer and commercialization.

Among the University of Maryland's expanding efforts to spur technology transfer and economic development:

• Committing to create 100 new technology companies based on university-owned intellectual property over the next decade, as a spur to economic growth in Maryland and the region, as part of the University System of Maryland (USM) strategic plan;

• Providing an annual Entrepreneurs Boot Camp to teach faculty, students and researchers from the region how to start their own companies; taught by venture capitalists, intellectual property attorneys, marketing experts, and accomplished entrepreneurs, it is an event that has been widely copied around the nation;

• Recognizing and promoting top UMD inventions through its annual Inventions of the Year awards given by the UMD Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC); winning technologies have generated a number of patents, technology license agreements and startup companies - a total of 16 patents for university inventions in FY 2010, and OTC licensed 27 technologies under 13 different license agreements;

• Developing a plan to better integrate entrepreneurial resources across the University of Maryland campus for researchers and the external venture and angel community;

• Encouraging students to develop their own companies through the Pitch Dingman program, an effort of the Robert H. Smith Business School Dingman Center to spur student entrepreneurship;

• Exploring better ways to link with its sister professional school campus in Baltimore - the University of Maryland, Baltimore - on joint research and technology commercialization efforts;

• Awarding grants of $140,000 to five start-up companies and university researchers through the $5 million Maryland Proof of Concept Alliance - a partnership managed by the University for the federal government and the University System of Maryland - designed to bridge the 'valley of death' in bringing technologies to commercial life;

• Creating a new, 15-credit undergraduate minor preparing students for launching successful technology ventures and bringing life-changing products and services to market;

• Launching the Warren Citrin Fellows Program for Entrepreneurial Engineering students, which supports master's and doctoral students pursuing research in the broad area of sustainability; the students also commit to build a company around their technologies.

"We know the President of the United States and the Congress are jointly committed to job creation," says Pat O'Shea, vice president for Research at the University of Maryland. "Through programs such as these launched by the University of Maryland, we hope to couple our actions with new initiatives in Washington, including the patent reform act, continued investment in basic research, and new business support programs, such as the StartUp America program, to create new ventures and jobs from university engagement with the community."

"The 1862 Morrill Act, which created the university land grant system, was really the nation's first technology transfer law," notes Brian Darmody, assistant VP for research and economic development. "As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act, and as we confront the challenges of economic stresses both internationally and domestically, it is incumbent to use our university research system resources wisely to promote job and venture creation."