How Is Your Tech Transfer Intern Program Going? (Or is it about to start?)

Danielle McCulloch

If you’ve implemented an internship program at your technology transfer office (TTO) this summer, chances are good that your interns are in the thick of doing technology screenings. How is the program going? What are your lessons learned? Are you seeing areas in which you might consider changes for the intern program next year? We’d love to hear from you.

Or maybe your TTO’s interns start in the fall. In that case, you might appreciate some of our lessons learned on hiring TTO interns, training them, and the ongoing mentoring that’s needed. In fact, we have lots of insights on TTO intern programs on our Web site.

If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, you know that Fuentek has had its fair share of experiences in this area, having implemented intern programs at several major research universities. As outlined in the white paper Developing an Effective Internship Program for Your University’s Technology Transfer Office, Fuentek recommends starting interns in the summer and, regardless of when they start, having interns perform tech screenings.

In fact, the technology screening process that we implemented in several internship programs is featured in our webinar video, A Step-by-Step Process for Technology Screenings.

As you consider how your intern program is going now—or if you’re looking ahead to a new batch of interns this fall—the webinar is excellent resource that enable you to get the most out of your interns while they get the most out of their experience in your TTO. And the webinar comes with a free live Q&A session, giving your interns the opportunity to get additional information about specific topics that are most relevant to your TTO. As I discussed in a previous blog post, attendees at our Q&A session in June found it helpful.

So join the discussion about TTO internship programs by posting a comment below, sending us a private message via our Contact Us page, or keep an eye out for this topic on LinkedIn^® and add comments there.

--By Danielle McCulloch