The Inter-University Technology Bundling Project proposes to create an infrastructure and system for identifying bundles of intellectual property from 18 universities in California and match those to private sector companies that can beneficially commercialize the ideas. The technology transfer offices from the 18 universities and research institutions and from numerous industry affiliates in Southern California comprise a network which is focused on improving the technology transfer process by collaboratively overcoming challenges to commercialization. This network of technology transfer offices is managed by Larta Institute, a leading nonprofit organization that connects people for the purpose of promoting innovation. The Inter-University Technology Bundling Project (IUTBP) was piloted with great success in 2005-2006 under Larta Institute's leadership and with the support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The network is now ready to move toward transactional phases and the IUTBP is enhancing the regional infrastructure for innovation and is building a model for national impact. Loma Linda University will lead this project in collaboration with Larta Institute.
With 41 bundles already identified and ready for marketing, this project has proven it can have broad economic and societal impact by overcoming the challenges facing the transfer of multi-institution IP. The successful transfer of just a fraction of existing shared IP and the easing of bundling processes to allow for more multi-university transfer efforts would each produce innovations effecting the health and well-being of people around the world and would generate new businesses and jobs in multiple sectors. Through Loma Linda's leadership, the project will involve and have an impact on numerous underrepresented student groups. The program has built-in mechanisms for intellectual dissemination, including to groups of significant diversity. In addition, the dissemination of effective ideas from this project would help develop practices and methods for transferring technologies across other organizations, including NSF-funded institutes in universities across the country. Finally, the integration of this program into Loma Linda's pedagogy and the project's involvement of minority researchers, students, and business people will help to grow the innovation enterprises of tomorrow, including those emerging in underrepresented communities.
Partners include Loma Linda University (lead institution), Larta Institute, California Institute of Technology, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, California State University-San Bernardino, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, City of Hope, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, San Diego State University, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-Riverside, University of California-Santa Cruz, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of California-San Diego, University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, California Pacific Medical Center, and Keck Graduate Institute
