Technology Transfer Readiness Assessment of the College of Agriculture and Food Science University of the Philippines Los Baños

Date

6-2022

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness Management

College

College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Glenn N. Baticados

Committee Member

Jewel Joanna S. Cabardo, Marjorie S. Florentino, Mar B. Cruz

Restrictions

Restricted: Not available to the general public. Access is available only after consultation with author/thesis adviser and only to those bound by the confidentiality agreement.

Abstract

The strategic framework of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) in advancing the STI sector highlights technology transfer as vital for national development. With the establishment of the Philippine Technology Transfer Act of 2009, institutions performing government-funded research and development are encouraged to include technology transfer as a strategic mission in translating knowledge into useful products and services that will be beneficial to the Filipino people. An institution under the University of the Philippines Los Baños, the College of Agriculture and Food Science (CAFS) has a vibrant scientific community that conducts research projects geared towards promoting the development of the country’s agriculture sector and addressing the most pressing problems in the country. Recognizing the role of technology transfer in fulfilling its mission and in line with the recent initiatives by the university to streamline technology transfer, CAFS is beginning to operationalize and institutionalize technology transfer.

The organizational design perspective on technology transfer suggests that managers must be able to align the purposes, activities, structure, and people across the different components of the university technology transfer ecosystem. In providing a holistic assessment of the preparedness of CAFS to engage in technology transfer, the institutional readiness model designed by Glenn N. Baticados (2020) for the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) provided an insight into the preparedness of the college in terms of four components: system readiness, employee readiness, process readiness, and structural readiness.

As a single case study on CAFS, the study had a total of 67 participants obtained through convenience and purposive sampling. Among the participants, 11 CAFS officials were a part of key informant interviews and 20 faculty and 36 Research, Extension, and Professional Staff (REPS) responded to the online survey questionnaires. Descriptive analysis was used to evaluate the responses of the participants to Likert scale questions and thematic analysis was utilized to identify concepts, themes, and patterns from their responses to open-ended and follow-up questions that provided depth to the study. The study found that the top involvements of the participants include research and development, program/project creation, teaching as a professor or instructor, and publication which are in line with the university’s mandate on research, extension, and instruction. On the other hand, technology development and innovation and technology transfer recorded low involvement among the participants.

The system readiness looked at the college’s implementation of the Philippine Technology Transfer Act of 2009. The participants agree that CAFS is aware of its roles and responsibilities and has implemented the changes required by the said law. Although primarily done at the university level, CAFS has shown its initiatives to facilitate technology transfer in the college. However, the limitations in fully implementing the changes required by the TTA at the college level include the existence of a technology transfer office mandated to manage technology transfer in the university and the limited resources CAFS had to allocate funds for technology transfer.

Employee readiness assessed the awareness of the participants on IP and technology transfer. The study found that the participants were able to correctly identify which innovations would be protected by copyright, patents, trademarks, and Plant Variety Protection. Their awareness has decreased when asked more specific questions. Hence, promoting awareness can begin with the important provisions of each type of IP. The participants also believe that it is valuable for researchers and program/project creators to understand how to protect their IP. In terms of involvement, the study found that only 27% of the participants have been involved in technology transfer activities in the past 10 years despite having research and development as their top involvement. Nonetheless, 100% of the participants believed that there is a need to train and capacitate the personnel who will be monitoring IP and commercialization in the college. They identified patent drafting and application and business development expertise as the top areas CAFS needs to be capacitated in. They also identified the need to be trained on entrepreneurship and the legal aspect of IP and tech transfer. Moreover, the study found that funding of research and technology transfer projects, assistance in IP protection and management, recognition in performance evaluation and career advancement, and grants for IP protection costs are the top motivators of the participants to engage in technology transfer. In process readiness, the study found that policies and procedures on research agreements, technology transfer protocol, incentives to researchers, and licensing of technologies are formalized through written internal policies. Meanwhile, it was unclear whether policies and procedures on ownership of technology and IP protection were not being practiced or were formalized through written internal policies. On the other hand, the participants were not aware of policies on disclosures, when to spin-off, trade secrets, other incentives and relative conflicts of interest, revenue sharing, and use of income and revolving funds. These offer an opportunity for the university to create a clear set of guidelines and frameworks that provide insight to researchers on how they can protect and commercialize their work and to the colleges on how they can cascade these procedures to the researchers to facilitate technology transfer.

For structural readiness, the study found that CAFS did not have a group or division nor a technical review or IP committee to manage IP and commercialization. Nonetheless, it has supported technology transfer through its coordination with TTBDO on promoting the technologies by the researchers, and technology transfer was done on the individual or unit level. With the CAFS Innovation and Agripreneurship Committee in the pipeline, the study recommended a model for CAFS in coordinating technology transfer at the college level. Based on the responses of the participants, the study recommends that the committee has the following functions: (a) to facilitate the IP and technology transfer process by consolidating information from all the units on the status of ongoing and completed research projects and technology developments and creating a database that will serve as a basis for TTBDO in monitoring projects with IP and market potential, (b) leading efforts in capacitating employees for IP and technology transfer, (c) forming collaborations with government funding agencies and industry partners for funding of research and technology development projects as well as obtaining potential adopters of technologies in assistance with TTBDO, and (4) cascading of policies and procedures through the creation of proforma guidelines and awareness materials.

Language

English

LC Subject

Technology transfer--Philippines, Preparedness--Evaluation

Location

UPLB College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Call Number

LG 993 2022 M17 A63

Document Type

Thesis

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