Commercialization infrastructure at UO

In this sub-section informants‟ experiences on commercialization infrastructure will be presented. The main focus will be how the respondents experience changes associated with the establishment of the university TTO and what supportive mechanisms they used before Birkeland Innovation was set up.

At the time of the interviews, researchers view Birkeland Innovation as their main TTO with an exception of professor c who mentioned that he mainly collaborates with Medinnova, because all his new projects at this point are within the field of medicine. The professor c emphasizes that the help he gets from this institution is very significant. He maintains that Birkeland Innovation and Medinnova are collaborating and they can decide which of them can take best care of a new project presented by him or his inventor group. Professor c also

has experienced collaboration with the Research Park of Oslo. He reflects on the past experiences with the institution in the following way:

I think it has changed over the years. They became more and more professional. They were not so experienced by the time we had first contracts. However, we got more and more help over the years from them. We have really benefited from the relationships with the research park.

Professor a has also experienced collaboration with several agencies which have been gone through reorganizations and policy changes during their development process. However she argues that it really has not affected her work in a negative way: Whenever we had something and we wanted to patent, we always knew more or less where to go. Among these agencies have been Medinnova, Biomedical Innovation (Biomedisinsk Inovasjon) and Oslo Research Park. She underlines that when she has a new idea she has to figure out whether it really is something new or just an extension of former project. Because if it is an extension of some previous project, then it is better to go to Biomedical Innovation which is familiar with the project; but if it is a new idea she would rather collaborate with Birkeland Innovation. All in all, she thinks that these institutions are in contact with each other and they work out which of them is best for some specific project presented by the researcher. Informant also

mentions that for her as an academic a distance with Birkeland Innovation is somewhat larger than with Biomedical Innovation. Nevertheless, she does not find it a barrier. She describes the collaboration with the university TTO as following:

I am absolutely comfortable with the way Birkeland is operating. I think their DOFI is clear, I fill it in, I am quite happy. They answer right away: “Yes, we received it”…

However, professor a thinks that Birkeland Innovation should be much more aggressive when it comes to establishing companies; as she puts it, just waiting for the patent to be licensed is very naïve. And as the company is established, it is very important to formalize the relationship between a researcher and a company:

The relationship between the company and the researcher should be formalized… one should be really aware of who is working where, and what for, and for which goal.

Otherwise academics will be eaten by the commercialization procedure.

For professor d, Birkeland Innovation is a preferred partner in commercialization activities.

He has also experienced collaboration with Oslo Research Park and claims that he can still choose between the two, but does not see any reason for this. He expresses his attitude toward Birkeland Innovation as following:

Birkeland is our TTO. Of course they can be better, but so far they have done a fairly good job. There are always challenges with respect to competence and profile. However, the largest problem they have is that they don’t have enough money. That affects us eventually.

They don’t have enough resources to properly take care of all the ideas that we produce.

A solution to this problem could be increased financial support from Norwegian government which will make the TTO more efficient in buying Innovation services from professionals.

He mentioned two specific examples for Innovation services: first was the ability to get professional help in writing proposals and business plans toward Innovation Norway; another important service could, according to the informant, be capacity of the TTO to investigate a potential of certain market segments which eventually would be the possible consumers of products/services:

If you are going to sell a product to a school, you need to understand the whole structure:

who pays for what? Is it government, is it parents, is it a teacher or an owner of the school?!

We know how it works in Norway, but it’s different in Denmark, Sweden… You should be able to buy services from e.g. consultancies in order to gather knowledge, information on possible consumers.

The interviewees claim that Birkeland Innovation should learn much and improve its approaches as it is in the development process. They agree that it takes time to be professional. Professor b describes the TTO in the following manner:

They are still developing; they are still improving. From my point of view, it is good thing to know that there is an organization where I can go. I could see some examples when

Birkeland is handling projects better than the hospital TTO… It’s important at all times to have a good motivated staff.

Thus, out of the informants discussions on commercialization infrastructure at the UO, several conclusions can be drawn: they are willing to collaborate with Birkeland Innovation which is responsible for commercializing research outputs at the UO. They are aware of the fact that it is not that long the TTO was established and it is learning and improving through the experiences.