IPNET Presentation

Presentation

The project aims to improve the IP management practices of EU and Asian Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in order to boost university-industry cooperation and technology transfer with a view to enhancing economic and technological cooperation. Thus, IPNET will contribute to this overall objective by:

• Benchmarking and learning from different experiences in the field of IP management in European and Asian Higher Education Institutions
• Providing useful information to IP units in EU and Asia via a web based tool and relevant documents and studies (including a Best Practice Guide for IP Management in EU-Asia research collaboration)
• Creating a sustainable structure through the development of a network of participating Asian and European Universities and Technology Transfer Institutions as a platform to boost future cooperation and information-sharing in the field of IPR and technology transfer among the two regions

Background

In the knowledge-based economy, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play a key role. They provide the economy with highly skilled personnel, and they generate and apply new knowledge to enhance economic prosperity and quality of life. The capacity of HEIs to support the application of new knowledge depends, increasingly, on the effective management of IP and funding and specifications for applied research, particularly in an industrial context.

IP is born in day-to-day activities of HEIs by means of research and other activities such as projects or the publication of articles; therefore institutions need to have in place strategies and policies to ensure that such IP is managed successfully.

Successful management of IP could be defined as either:

• using a practical application to boost innovation and thus economic prosperity, opening up additional sources of funding for HEIs, or
• simply not jeopardising the hard work of the researcher / author through the adequate protection of the findings.

This is especially important when considering that IP is a fundamental part of knowledge transfer as it is used to control the dissemination of knowledge generated by an institution and its application and further development.