In January 2022, the Province of Ontario issued its Commercialization Mandate Policy Framework, which seeks to improve the province’s intellectual property position by “improving commercialization outcomes and realizing the benefits of policy-funded research and innovation”.
The document at the link below outlines the initiatives, practices, and procedures that Carleton University is undertaking in each of the six elements identified in the Provincial Framework.
In July 2020, the Ontario Government released the province’s first Intellectual Property Action Plan. As part of its implementation, in January 2022 the Province of Ontario issued its Commercialization Mandate Policy Framework (“Framework”), which seeks to enhance the province’s intellectual property position by improving commercialization outcomes and realizing net benefits to Ontario of publicly-funded research. Pursuant to the Framework, the University is implementing a commercialization policy that maximizes commercialization opportunities, protects Ontario’s interests and strengthens the Ontario economy.
The purpose of this policy is to affirm Carleton’s longstanding commitment to support the protection and commercialization of intellectual property generated from its research programs; to provide guidance to its members on educational materials and resources available; and to foster commercialization of intellectual property in a way that provides a net benefit to Ontario.
Carleton Commercialization Framework and Policy
In the 2022 Commercialization Plan Carleton University reaffirms that it supports innovation transfer in all its dimensions and the commercialization of the concepts, processes and products emerging from research at the University. Innovation Transfer represents the movements of concepts, processes and products generated and developed at Carleton University to external communities including industry, government, and society at large. This transfer of technology is undertaken in a variety of ways including, but not limited to, publication of research results and concepts, conduct of seminars and conferences, commercialization, and various types of research arrangements.
Carleton’s industry-sponsored research has grown exponentially over the past 3 years, providing us with a portfolio of partners in research, innovation and commercialization. The University supports submissions to external funders for partial funding of intellectual property (eg: NSERC and OCI) and actively seeks domain expertise from external parties where there are knowledge gaps and partners to deliver educational programming on campus and remotely.
IP Development and Commercialization Success – Year 2, Annual Commercialization Plan
At Carleton we have an “inventor-owned IP policy”, with a duty to disclose IP generated with supplemental university resources as outlined in our collective agreement. In addition, the Carleton Innovation Transfer Office (CITO), was only re-established several years ago after being shuttered for some time. There has been strong growth in commercialization activities since CITO was re-established and we believe there is an opportunity to further increase awareness on the potential benefits and resources available to support protection and commercialization/mobilization of innovations. We recognize the opportunity to secure an increasing number of intellectual property disclosures by actively promoting the support available, while at the same time recognizing that not all faculty members have an inherent interest in prioritizing the commercialization of their intellectual property.
Carleton University has been steadily investing in its research capacity. From 2021-2023, 116 research faculty hires were made and 36 of the new hires work in areas anticipated to have high commercialization interest (2021: 57 new hires, 26 in ‘IP relevant’ (commercialization-friendly) areas; 2022: 38 new, 23 in IP relevant areas; 2023: 23 new, 8 in relevant areas). The increase in research capacity combined with outreach on the services and success of technology transfer activities in anticipated to increase the number of invention disclosures made at the University. In order to address anticipated needs, Carleton has specifically focused on increasing IP and commercialization capacity at the University.
During the past year, CITO has worked extensively to build capacity within the team and on campus. To this end, we have hired an Assistant Director, Innovation and Partnerships to assist with both business development for new research partnerships as well as to provide additional support to technology commercialization. We also secured funding from Intellectual Property Ontario that will be directed towards efforts to increase the volume of IP disclosures received by the office, including funding for a Commercialization Officer. These two new hires joined us early in the new fiscal year and will support Carleton in increasing IP development and commercialization opportunities moving forward. We have continued to meet regularly with our Innovation Transfer Advisory Board, consisting of representation from all faculties at Carleton, and conducted outreach to Chairs’ and Directors’ meetings within relevant faculties to facilitate early awareness of the services provided by CITO. We have worked with the Advisory Board to expand outreach/awareness to faculty members and have also initiated an internal review of the innovation disclosure process at Carleton. To further enhance capacity within the faculties, IP education was provided to research facilitators and faculty members from across disciplines. A particular focus for this training was around provincial funding initiatives such as the Early Career Researcher Award program. Through our collaboration with CIPO, two IP educational sessions were also provided by a CIPO IP Advisor to classes of undergraduate and graduate students.