Volume 35 Number 3	Edmonton, Canada	September 26, 1997
http://www.ualberta.ca/~publicas/folio

The RTM management team: John Ferguson, Janice Rennie and Jason Randhawa

A new business established by the University of Alberta hopes to hasten the journey research takes to the marketplace.

Wednesday marked the launch of Research Technology Management Inc. (RTM), a new company wholly owned by the U of A, dedicated to helping as many as six spin-off companies a year get their feet beneath them. It will provide early management, the marketing expertise, and the necessary seed money to make University spin-offs a success.

The time is right, says RTM Chairman John Ferguson. There is a "recent recognition that there is a greater opportunity to commercialize the research that goes on here. Universities throughout North America are having to become less dependent on government funding. Therefore, they are looking for other sources of capital, and this is one of the obvious areas we can look at."

RTM is not intended to cover the same ground as the current Industry Liaison Office. "We will work very closely with the Industry Liaison Office to identify technologies where RTM fits," says RTM President Janice Rennie. "The ILO is the broad spectrum of technology transfer for the University. They work on the licensing, the patenting, the prototyping, all of those things and some spin-off company creations. We have a very narrow focus on just a few spin-off companies."

How does the University benefit? "RTM is owned 100 per cent by the University of Alberta," says Rennie, "So if we maximize the value of something, that is shared through profits back to the University." She says successful spin-off companies will also continue to conduct research, hopefully in contract with the University. Finally, she says, "University professors, ...through University policies,... will also have an ownership or a partial ownership in some of these technologies."

The focus on technology and applied research begs the question of whether this may have some negative impact on basic research here at the University. Not so, says Rennie. Profits are "to go back to the University for their priorities, which include research." That and the continued relationship of the University in the ongoing research of spin-off companies is seen as the insurance that basic research will not be left out.

"We are not changing the focus of research," says Rennie. From the variety of research going on here, there are bound to be great ideas that pop up. "What we're saying is, if they do pop out of here, why don't we do something with them."

Ferguson says non-traditional spin-offs may result. "I think you will be surprised where some of these companies come from. I have had discussions with the Department of Fine Arts in a couple of situations already. Brilliant people on campus can come up with all kinds of ideas of where you can create these companies from."

RTM has secured five years of funding from donations and grants specifically directed to the U of A for technology transfer and the operations of RTM. Beyond that, they will have to be self-supporting and operate on funds from the technology companies they develop.

This model comes from extensive investigation of other technology transfer programs in North America.

"The most useful knowledge we got was when they told us how they would do it differently," says Ferguson. "We think we had some of the best brainpower and experience in technology transfer in the world assisting us in creating the ideal model."

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