Performance Assessments of Technology Transfer Offices of Thirty Major US Research Universities in 2012/2013

The activities and performance of thirty major universities technology transfer offices (TTOs) selected from major US universities are quantitatively assessed and compared. Six leading metrics, including TTOs’ revenue, as well as quantity of invention disclosures, patent applications, patents granted, licenses signed, and startup companies launched, are used to develop a single overall performance metric (OPM) for representing the performance of the TTOs. The OPM are then evaluated for each of the thirty universities and their OPM scores are compared to each other to establish the reliability and effectiveness of a comprehensive OPM. A patenting control ratio (PCR) is also calculated to guide a TTO in setting its patenting strategy and procedures. These two metrics should be able to provide a comprehensive overview of how good is the TTO of a university as compare to those of its peers and, even more importantly, how the program fares globally.

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