Crowd - not committee-based, or Accepting we can't really know what has value
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 JISC infoNet
The purpose of freeing-up the flow of IP to external partners and intermediaries is not simply to facilitate scalability, it's a reflection of the fact that the university (even the inventor) is not best placed to determine the best application. Better results can be achieved by outsourcing the review of ideas too. The lack of fluidity in IP flow is the cause of much debate in term of university-business relations, and it is perhaps true that:
"... the tech transfer industry, as a whole, hasn't kept up with the staggering advances in electronic marketing techniques and search engine optimisation strategies, over the last decade. The only viable option for transferring the latest technology to someone who can turn it into jobs, growth and money for your university, lab or hospital, is sending more emails and making more phone calls and hoping that serendipity smiles upon your efforts; leaving one hoping that the new technology is at the perfect intersection of innovation, need, ability, resources and the right person actually knowing the other right person, so they can engineer a meeting."1
This constraint on the flow of IP is so acute that many are already reaching for radical solutions. The Kaufman Institute commented that "we know that there are many vital innovations and discoveries languishing in university labs because of a suboptimal licensing system at many universities", and therefore proposed that "One simple amendment... would (be to) allow faculty members to choose their own licensing agents/experts and bring these discoveries to market quickly. Unleashing this kind of innovation will lead to the creation of new companies and new jobs."2 This was supported by the Harvard Business Review as a Top Ten Breakthrough Business Idea of 2010.
For many reasons most universities are likely to shy away from such radical solutions (for reasons including the need to generate review and to provide support to lone academics). However, if the openness and fluidity of such an open/market approach could be channelled via a knowledge Transfer Office (KTO) and a university innovation process that removed unnecessary pinch points, they may be more likely to adopt openness.
