This unique course will deal with successfully commercializing any type of research activity, whether focused on engineering, physical sciences or life-sciences. The course will discuss the practical business and legal issues that researchers need to understand to commercialize their research. We will deal with the different ways to commercialize research, ranging from the traditional (i.e., employment and licensing) to the more entrepreneurial (i.e., consulting, joint venturing/strategic alliance and startup company). We will show how these commercialization methods overlap and how they differ. We will deal with fundamental topics like intellectual property, licensing agreements, employment agreements and consulting agreements, which researchers must understand regardless of whether they intend to be researchers at a university lab or the founder of the next great public company. We will then turn to the advance topics of creating and funding companies. The main difference between the fundamental and advance topics is that the fundamental are basically personal topics that every researcher needs to know in their commercialization efforts. The advance topics deal with commercializing as a group, with the resulting complexities of understanding the relationships and expectations of the other team members in the company, be they other employees, founders, executives, board members, shareholders, investors or partners.
Each lecture is a 90-minute webinar. There will be expert guest speakers for each session. National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2)