The LSU System has about 140 active licensing agreements with businesses, and it received 16 patents for new inventions in the last fiscal year, LSU Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research-Technology Transfer Andy Maas told the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge this afternoon.
However, Maas said LSU is not producing patents and licensing innovations as efficiently as similar schools across the country, according to data from the Association of University Technology Managers.
The data show that while LSU obtains one patent for every $4.2 million of funding, similar schools average one patent for about half the funding.
“LSU has a long way to go,” Maas said. “Part of it is communicating and reaching out to the community. A majority of research funding is to create a report. It doesn’t cover the cost of creating a widget to commercialize an idea.”
To help LSU faculty members make the step from research to the marketplace, the LSU Board of Supervisors created the Leveraging Innovation for Technology Transfer Grant Program in January 2014, also known as LIFT2.
In March, 14 LSU System faculty members were awarded competitive grants of up to $50,000 each to help bring their products to the marketplace. The board has handed out $1 million in grants from the program to faculty members so far, and it has pledged to invest a total of $4 million in the program. Grant awards will be announced twice annually.
“They have one year to produce a proof of concept with the funding,” Maas said of the LIFT2 grants. “But a lot of faculty members don’t know they can apply for this funding.”
Maas said he has reached out to local business owners for potential partnerships, adding his department at LSU could match university researchers with them to help commercialize and drive innovation. He stressed the university’s need for stronger connections with the community.
“Come to us with your problems,” Maas urged the Rotarians, many of whom are leading business professionals in the area. “Sometimes technology solves a problem we perceive as a problem, but a lot of times it solves something we didn’t even know about.”
Maas, who also serves as director of innovation and technology commercialization for LSU’s flagship campus, is tasked with pushing the university’s research and innovation ideas into the marketplace. Part of LSU’s mission statement is “to commercialize inventions that enhance the community and benefit the public” by patenting intellectual property and creating agreements with businesses for the use of inventions and innovations, Maas said. Faculty members whose inventions become patented and licensed receive 40% royalties for everything earned by their ideas, he said.
The LSU faculty members and researchers behind the 16 patents awarded over the past fiscal year will showcase their inventions and be honored at the LSU Innovation and Technology Commercialization Inventorship Showcase on Tuesday, May 19, at 5:30 p.m. at the Lod Cook Alumni Center. Get complete event details.
—Deanna Narveson
