The latest product, material, service or process that revolutionizes an industry—and, possibly, your life—may get its start on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge.
As Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, the commercialization of university research, or technology transfer, has become a key component of LSU’s mission—and not only to facilitate world-renowned research, but also to enhance the local and state economies. Innovation is recognized as a vital ingredient toward strengthening and diversifying Louisiana’s increasingly knowledge-based economy.
LSU has made an extra push to connect on-campus innovation with economic development beyond the university in recent years, partly in response to a 2012 report that found Louisiana was doing less academic research, including less research and development expenditures, than other states. LSU researchers also lagged behind their peers in other states in bringing their innovation to market.
“In the past two years, LSU’s Office of Research and Economic Development has worked hard to reinvent our tech transfer operations by hiring new leadership, streamlining processes and creating programs to incentivize tech transfer,” says Richard Koubek, LSU’s interim executive vice president and provost.
In July 2013, Kalliat Valsaraj became LSU’s vice chancellor of research and economic development. One of Valsaraj’s strategic goals is fostering and improving economic development activities and industrial ties. The next year, LSU hired Andrew Maas as assistant vice president for research-technology transfer. Maas serves as the university’s liaison to industry and the business community and promotes LSU’s research and its role in economic development. Maas also serves as the director of the LSU Office of Innovation and Technology, where he oversees identifying, evaluating, protecting and licensing inventions and copyrights developed through research at LSU.
Maas, who says building relationships is a critical part of his job, hit the ground running. He started by meeting with LSU’s deans and department heads.
In the first 11 months of LSU’s fiscal year 2014, LSU’s Office of Innovation & Technology Commercialization received 29 invention disclosures—documents detailing an innovation a university researcher has developed. In the final month of the fiscal year, after Maas’ meetings with faculty, his office received 13 more innovation disclosures to end the year with 42. In fiscal year 2015, 56 innovation disclosures were submitted.
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