[PDADC-L] Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO): Update on current and future operation within the V-P Research Portfolio

MEMORANDUM

TO: Principals, Deans, Academic Directors and Chairs

FROM: Professor R. Paul Young, Vice-President, Research

DATE: 12th May, 2010

RE: Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO): Update on current and future operation within the V-P Research Portfolio


For the period January 1st to April 30th, 2010, Dr. Ron Venter served on a part-time basis as the interim Assistant V-P Research at the Innovations and Partnerships Office working with Dr. Peter Lewis Associate V-P Research. During this period Ron Venter and Peter Lewis closely scrutinized the activities of the IPO, which is now fully incorporated into the Offices of the V-P Research to better understand the serious service shortcomings that inevitably do arise when new structures are introduced and personnel are relocated into new environments as has occurred with restructuring in 2009. A number of important operational items are listed below that are intended to help clarify the IPO operations and need to be interpreted as the first steps to advancing the growth of research partnerships with MaRS Innovation, Industry and Government.

1. The Importance of Being Ernest about Partnerships: Recently greater emphasis is being placed by the Tri-Councils, Networks and Centres of Excellence, MRI and indeed most Governments to partner with the private sector to specifically share and contribute our considerable research expertise and awareness on all fronts. These initiatives will continue and grow louder; new programs such as the INTERACT and ENGAGE grants initiated by NSERC in recent months represent important new opportunities for the University to excel and provide leadership. In this context of growing the research partnership base of the University, the IPO services pertaining to all funded and non-funded contract agreements and proposals must therefore be recognized as an essential service within the enterprise (see bullet point 7 below for action currently undertaken for existing contract agreement processing). In brief the University cannot as an entity be promoting research partnerships without effective and timely procedures for the processing of contractual agreements and for ensuring accurate accountability on all expenditures, obligations and finally the systematic closure of each and every partnership agreement when concluded. Therefore the capacity to process existing and future research contracts is currently being expanded. This responsibility is a shared undertaking with Faculties and the centralized services of the University: the impact and benefit of expanding our partnership capacity with the tri-councils and NCEs, for example, will contribute to enhancing our collective national share of the CRCs assigned to the University which is a high priority for many of our Faculties.

2. Clarity on the Structure of the V-P Research, specifically IPO and MaRS INNOVATION: The attached pdf file is an information roadmap that serves to identify the mission of the V-P research and three pillars of activity namely the Research Services Office (RSO), the Research Oversight and Compliance Office (ROCO) and the Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO) respectively within the VPR portfolio. For the IPO, the document also provides the context to promote the IPO mission, the mandate and the activities of IPO and particularly clarifies within the University community the exciting interface that exists between IPO and MaRS Innovation [MI], a recently established CECR [Centre of Excellence for Commercialization of Research]. Kindly examine the critical three Building Blocks to Facilitate Research Partnership with IPO and MI which are highlighted as bullets 3, 4 and 5 below.

3. Building Block 1: Proposals and Agreements to innovations.partnerships@utoronto.ca : Researchers at the University are now requested to submit all research agreements and proposals that address either funded or non-funded contracts and or agreements with industry, government and or other partners to the IPO for processing. Typically all such agreements and proposals will have an industrial and or government partner/ sponsor and include: NCE, OCE, POP, I2I, CRD, ENGAGE, Industry and Government. All such proposals can be forwarded electronically to innovations.partnerships@utoronto.ca , or hard copies delivered to IPO, for processing. These new procedures are essential to effectively track all proposals and or agreements. Our target is that all electronic submissions will be acknowledged within one business day; with the indication of a follow up by an IPO contracts officer within three working days.

4. Building Block 2: Disclosures to ip.officer@utoronto.ca : Researchers are invited to direct all disclosure and or research outcome submissions and or requests for information on disclosure submissions to ip.officer@utoronto.ca. At present the University of Toronto submits around 140 disclosures per annum; it is important to work to increase this number as well as the quality of all disclosure and to recognize this significant contribution to the research enterprise.

5. Building Block 3: Disclosure Assessment: IPO now works seamlessly with MaRS Innovation [MI] to develop technologies to become more attractive to the private sector and to transfer this knowledge to industry through licences and or start-ups. Unencumbered U of T disclosures are always initially assessed by a Deal Team of MI and IPO experts. Access to MI is only achieved by filing all disclosures to IPO. The attached pdf file also provides a block diagram illustration of the process to assess the technology including the procedures for the transfer of the intellectual property to enable commercialization and the distribution of net revenues based on the University’s IP policy. It also clarifies the mandate of MaRS Innovation [MI]; the roles of MI and IPO are distinctly different, but the twin entities collaborate as an effective engine on the commercialization of the University’s intellectual property.

6. Partnerships with Faculties: Effective partnerships between IPO and the Faculties is an essential building block for the future. Informative discussions with the Faculties of Applied Science and Engineering and Medicine have been initiated (with others to follow) to better formalize robust and transparent ways through which each Faculty can benefit and work with IPO to inform all researchers of the opportunities provided through the commercialization and licensing of intellectual property and knowledge transfer. Effective partnerships with all Faculties plus UTM and UTSC are prime objectives and a sensible way forward.

7. Contract Positions [implementation of bullets 1 & 3]: A considerable and embarrassing backlog of contract proposals and or agreements to be processed exists at IPO as a consequence of numerous factors at play in the transition from TIG to IPO. This unfortunate situation has had to be remedied and new solutions have been identified. As noted previously the processing of contracts is now recognized as an essential service and as such it is significant that four new appointments have been approved [two contract officers and two administrative positions to expressly assist in the processing of agreements and contract proposals as well as the closing of contracts that have been completed]. This will increase the current complement of four project officers to six plus provide two administrative support positions. Unfortunately, the back-log will not dissipate overnight, but will be systematically monitored to increasingly balance supply & demand. In the interim, and until such time as all contract officers are hired, IPO has secured the part-time services of a highly experienced and recently retired contract officer, who will also assist with the training of the contract officers at IPO to transfer her multi-faceted experiences with external contract know-how over 30 years to the staff at IPO. It is most significant in this context to recognize the leadership of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (FASE) for their commitment to contribute the full salary and benefits of one of the two new contract officers identified above. This commitment is for a three-year term and will significantly boost the processing ability of the IPO. It is to be noted that FASE accounts for some 45-48% of all funded partnership agreements within the University.

8. Reporting Metrics and Communication: Good progress is being made to better use the website: http://www.research.utoronto.ca to full advantage by all elements of the portfolio; this will be increasingly more evident in the months ahead.

What is also equally important is to develop a set of operational metrics to convey relevant and factual information to Deans, Faculties, Research Advisory Board, Management; such metrics are emerging; those already in place include:
A. On Disclosures: monthly records of all disclosures, both encumbered and university/inventor owned intellectual property.
B. On MaRS Innovation: detailed information on all university/inventor disclosures that are accepted by MaRS Innovation [MI] for commercialization [proof of principle, start-up, licencing]; the status and number of Agency Agreements where MI, working with IPO, essentially acts as the lead commercialization agent for each positively assessed technology.
C. On Active IPO Commercialization Projects: Projects declined by MI are monitored within IPO. These projects together with all active commercialization projects, labeled as Legacy Projects since they precede the establishment of MI, need to be reclassified as either active or inactive and reduced to manageable numbers, consistent with the resources available.
In addition to the above, new procedures have been introduced on the processing of Funded and Non- Funded Proposals and Agreements in support of partnerships with industry, government and institutions and or agencies. Quite simply the processing of proposals and or agreements is the critical path for the building and promotion of research partnerships. IPO will record and tightly monitor the number of all new submissions on a weekly basis as well as record and monitor all those Funded and Non-Funded proposals/agreements that are processed to completion [time when either all signatures and or funds are available] at IPO. The supply and demand needs to be matched to ensure that all such contracts are being processed as efficiently and effectively as possible. IF MORE ARE BEING RECEIVED THAN CAN BE PROCESSED THEN WE HAVE A PROBLEM AND WE NEED TO FIX IT. These are the type of metrics that will be shared with Faculties to better plan for the strengthening of partnerships and the commercialization of our disclosures. Consistent with these objectives is the current initiative within the portfolio and identified as project RAISE to develop and promote more effective computerized procedures to facilitate data entry and retrieval to streamline all research processing and data retrieval operations.

9. AVP for IPO Search Process: The search for an AVP to lead the IPO in the years ahead is now underway; it is anticipated that an appointment will be announced in the late Fall, 2010.