Technology transfer support at national level

One of the recent tasks and responsibilities of the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (CVTI SR) is to provide technology transfer support to public research organisations on national level. For this purpose, SCSTI has been mandated by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic to implement national project, co-financed from the EU structural funds within the Operational Programme Research and Development, named National infrastructure for technology transfer support in Slovakia – NITT SK. The project is focused on building and securing operation of the national system supporting technology transfer processes in Slovakia and is implemented in the period June 2010 – December 2014 with the total budget of 8.2 million. The transfer of knowledge from science to industry, for the benefit of society, will be supported through the complex mechanism, which is currently being developed. The key subject in the whole system will be the National Technology Transfer Centre, which will co-operate closely with local technology transfer centres established at universities and public research institutions. Important part of the system will be the National patent fund, from which financial support in the processes of protecting and commercialising intellectual property will be provided to public research institutions. The financial support shall include payments for patent filing and maintenance (PCT, USPTO, European and national applications), patent attorneys services, patent translations, partner search, marketing, negotiating and licensing. Even nowadays, patent filing fees are covered form the state budget money administrated by the CVTI SR, while external support services are provided within the NITT SK project. This is a great benefit for Slovak public and state universities and the Slovak Academy of Sciences, which had to permanently face the lack of financial means for these purposes. Concerning the technology transfer activities that are being provided through the NITT SK project, these cover the whole process of transferring scientific knowledge into the praxis, starting from intellectual property protection and ending with its commercial utilisation. Services are provided by external high-level experts on relevant technology transfer issue from respective scientific field. All costs are covered from the NITT SK budget and are free for scientific community. Concrete services include assessment of intellectual property commercialisation potential, state of the art analyses, patent application preparation and filing, technology marketing, partner searches, negotiation support, preparation of licensing agreements, spin-offs creation, follow-up of royalties’ payment and so on. Since 2012, when this support started, several patent applications have already been supported within the NITT SK project. Last year, the National portal for technology transfer has also been launched within the NITT SK project. It provides a comprehensive overview of technology transfer issues serving researchers, students, companies and local TT offices. Useful are sample contracts, internal regulations and other methodological materials related to technology transfer. It comprises also a list of competencies of Slovak RandD institutions and links to relevant Slovak, foreign and international organisations, groups and initiatives.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notesXAInternationa