Xconomy � Blog Archive � Can Harvard Match MIT at Tech Transfer?: "Change is afoot at Harvard University’s technology transfer operation. As Harvard spokesperson B.D. Colen puts it: “There’s no question that there is a new emphasis here on getting out into the world technologies that can benefit the public and that have too often been languishing on the shelf.”
Most recently, a faculty committee studying the commercialization of research at the university briefed incoming Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust on the findings of its work over the past year. The panel, led by Harvard cancer biologist Laurie Glimcher, is now nearing completion on a public report. Insiders say that one of its major recommendations is for Harvard to adopt uniform standards across disciplines that will allow the university to play a larger role in the commercialization of technologies emerging outside the biomedical field. Unlike most universities today, Harvard currently lays automatic claim to inventions only in the areas of medical diagnostics, therapeutics, or public health, or if the discovery has been facilitated by an unusual amount of financial support from the university."
