Help uncover new trends in intellectual property licensing

The economic landscape for tech transfer offices (TTOs) is changing, and at Imperial Enterprise we are seeing emerging evidence of changing patterns in how Imperial and other universities around the world license their intellectual property (IP) to commercial partners. These include, for example, a shift away from licensing to major corporates in favour of smaller companies and spinouts, which can help to de-risk technologies before corporates invest in them. They also include differences between industries, with healthcare providing Imperial the greatest source of high-value deals. 

To further interrogate these trends in technology licensing, we are carrying out a study that will draw on the generous support of our peers and collaborators from other universities, technology transfer offices, and businesses. This seeks to provide the community with answers to questions such as: 

• Which industry sectors (e.g. medtech, therapeutics, industrials) are licensing the most from universities? 
• What size of companies are licensing the most from universities?  
• At which Technology Readiness Level do companies seek to license? 
• How do companies hear about the technologies they license from universities? 

We hope that this research will provide insights that can help us and our peers develop our licensing strategy.  

We will publicly share the full results of this research to help inform the technology transfer community and other stakeholders and help drive a public conversation. In so doing, we won’t reveal any information attributable to specific people or organisations.

If you work for a university or tech transfer office, we would appreciate if you could complete a short survey about your IP licensing activity. The survey should take around ten minutes to complete and the submission deadline is 29 February 2024.