Joshua Romisher*
In 2018, universities around the world spent over R3.9B on research and development (R&D). According to the National Intellectual Property Management Office, in that same year South African universities generated 19,808 R&D publications. However, less than 4% of those publications were commercialised as inventions, patents or intellectual property (IP). It's perhaps no shock then that a study conducted among University Technology Transfer (TT) offices in the USA concluded that only 13% of those offices can cover their operating costs. Something is clearly amiss when less than one out of every eight TT offices in the most developed country in the world are actually viable entities themselves.