Educators’ Perspectives on University Technology Transfer Processes in the Philippines: A Case Study

Abstract

As universities extend the scope of their tasks as educational institutions to include technology transfer and commercialization of their faculty’s and students’ research outputs, it becomes necessary to investigate internal systems that facilitate such processes. Existing literature on technology transfer in the Philippines is mostly focused on the transfer of a specific technology, industry–academe research and development (R&D) collaboration, the experience in a specific industry, or the experience in public Philippine higher education institutions (HEIs). The perspectives of educators and researchers who are the recipients of technology transfer services within Philippine HEIs have, so far, not yet been investigated. This paper aims to fill that gap by interviewing eight educators from four colleges in a Philippine HEI. The findings primarily reveal the importance of internal communications in the university technology transfer process. They also reveal that, aside from entrepreneurship training, educators need to understand the intellectual property rights system to see the potential benefits of intellectual property protection and be able to relate intellectual property rights to their research work. This paper therefore recommends that, to promote intellectual property awareness and academic entrepreneurship in the country, HEIs need to allocate resources for intellectual property education and entrepreneurship training to encourage active participation of researchers in Philippine HEIs in the formal technology transfer process.