Education Ministry provides state universities access to commercial patent databases
In most universities abroad, the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) support commercial exploitation of research outcomes while managing the Intellectual Property (IP) created within the university. Various efforts have been taken by universities in Sri Lanka to transfer the technology and knowledge created within universities for the benefit of society.
However there were no central offices in Sri Lankan universities to manage IP and to give the support required by the academics to make use of their research for public good. This gap was fulfilled by the University Grant Commission (UGC) in 2016 by issuing a circular to establish University Business Linkage (UBL) cells at universities. A systematic establishment of the UBLs in all 15 universities were done by AHEAD operation, by following the development through a UBL score card.
This score card included four phases that universities were required to complete incrementally. Phase one involved the establishment of a core UBL cell. Phase two included the completion of infrastructure for the UBL Cell. Phase three would then make these cells operational and phase four is the outcome stage of the UBL cells.
All 15 universities had completed phase one and two of the UBL score card and seven universities had completed phase three of the score card already. There were six participating non-state Higher Education Institutes (HEI) where AHEAD had given technical support to establish HEI-Society Linkage (HEI-SL) cells which would carry out the same functions.
These UBLs /HEI-SL cells would support the research teams to identify suitable commercial partners and thereby transfer benefits of university research to the industry and society. The University Grant Commission took steps to establish the UGC/UBL standing committee in 2020. The UBL standing committee gathers every other month to provide an opportunity for few selected UBL/HEI-SL directors to present ongoing research work at their universities.
Chambers of commerce such as the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka and a number of associations representing various sectors were invited to this committee. This interaction would help the trade chambers and other stakeholders to access innovations from universities to generate economic development in the country.
Using AHEAD funds, the Ministry took an important initiative and provided access to commercial patent databases for the first time in Sri Lankan universities. This would help researchers to not engage in technology already exploited and avoid unnecessary patent filing. Further they could get information about commercial partners interested in a particular technology.
The need of an online platform to connect the academics to industry was also recognised. As such an App “CONNECT AHEAD” was developed to connect the two parties. The web app “CONNECT AHEAD” would continue to provide information to the private sector and universities to identify suitable teams to partner with. AHEAD welcomed all industries wanting to partner with universities and all university academics interested in partnering with private sector to create profiles and add keywords of their research work in the app by visiting https://ahead.lk/connect/. (Tharushi Weerasinghe)