WaikatoLink Commercial General Manager Nigel Slaughter attended the Annual ASTP conference last Week in Stockholm:
The ASTP conference this year, was a fantastic meeting of 250+ technology transfer professionals from around the world. The conference sessions were great, but the networking opportunities between sessions were the key to the event. We developed relationships with organisations that can support WaikatoLink to take NZ technologies into Europe (and vice versa, via the Kiwinet group of Universities & Crown Research Organisations), uncovered some new ideas about how to take technologies to market more efficiently & effectively, and found a group of people who can help to develop and promote our commercialisation training programme. ‘Easy access IP’ was one of the core themes of the conference, reaffirming that our strategy in this area is increasingly being seen as best practice.
About ASTP:
The initiative of a multinational group of professionals to meet and share experiences on a regular basis resulted in the establishment of the non-profit Association of European Science & Technology Transfer Professionals. ASTP is practitioners and members focused and is growing rapidly; our association consists of more than 600 members, covering 41 countries. The majority of our members are technology transfer professionals at public knowledge institutions.