Fourteen participants received their certificates after completing the pilot Research Partnerships and Commercialization Workshop (RP&CW) led by Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation (QPI). The two-day program covered topics such as market/technology assessments, design thinking, intellectual property, effective communication, and commercialization strategies to support research, research partnerships, and commercialization/startup formation activities.
The program was designed for graduate students (including those in professional programs such as Law or Medicine), post-doctoral fellows, and faculty members conducting research in fields in which knowledge mobilization or commercialization of the research outcome is likely or for those who have a startup idea. QPI saw participants from a variety of disciplines including Chemical Engineering, Neuroscience, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chemistry, Mining, Medicine, and History.
“The diversity of disciplines was great to see in the registration,” says Jason Hendry, Assistant Director Commercial Development with Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation. Jason co-delivered the workshop with Michael Wells, Assistant Director Commercial Development with QPI. “Having people from different backgrounds helped participants to think about things from different perspectives and led to better interactions amongst the breakout groups” commented Michael Wells.
On the first day of the program, participants spent the morning learning about how to conduct patent searches and primary/secondary market research to broaden their literature review. In the afternoon, Jim McLellan, Academic Director of the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre led participants through a Design Thinking workshop.
“I was informed about the workshop by Jason and Mike from Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation office,” says Zhe She, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. “I think it is important to know there is a whole new world when we deal with intellectual properties and commercialization. It is beyond our typical academic avenues such as journal publications.”
On the second day of the series, participants learned more about the different types of intellectual property (utility patents, industrial design patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets) as well as considerations in agreements/contracts used when interacting or collaborating with industry. They also learned how to implement effective strategies for communicating technical subject matter to non-technical audiences, including how to pitch a technology and/or a startup, and how to address questions during pitch sessions as well as what commercialization activities are needed to advance a technology from the lab to the market
“The workshop was fantastic,” says Juan Gomez-Cruz, Ph.D. Candidate, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM)-Queen’s University. “Having completed this, it has motivated me to enroll in the I2I program from MITACS, BEEDIE School of Business, and Queen’s.”
“With this being the pilot project and the great feedback we received after the workshop from the participants, we are looking forward to the next workshops series,” says Jason.