Chinese research leaders learn about tech transfer

Twenty members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences will be at the university until Friday, Aug. 25, to learn how Wisconsin research moves into the marketplace.

UW–Madison’s Asian Partnership Initiative is hosting the group. The Chinese research leaders are taking a course on “Managing Technology from Research to Market.” The Chinese Academy of Sciences requested the course when UW–Madison Provost John Wiley visited Beijing in 1998.

“As China moves forward into the market economy, it is looking to its research institutes to develop and market new technologies that will better the lives of its citizens. UW–Madison offers them an excellent model of conducting and disseminating research for the public good,” Wiley says.

With more than 100 research institutes, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the main focus of China’s biological, physical, and engineering research. The 20 Chinese scientists include experts on physics, botany, chemical metallurgy, chemical physics, environment, automation, optics, geochemistry, oceanography, astronomy, geology and entomology. Most of the visitors are deputy directors of research institutes in China.

The course will help participants improve their skills in managing research and moving new technology from the lab to the market. It includes workshops on management tools and offers different models of how research is organized and managed in the United States.

The course will explain how public research institutions transfer technology to the private sector, how new technology companies get started and grow, and how public research establishments can promote economic development.

Wiley and Graduate School Dean Virginia Hinshaw spoke to the Chinese scientists this week. They also will hear from numerous campus departments and centers; technology transfer offices on campus, local companies, the state Department of Commerce and the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago.

Chancellor David Ward started the Asian Partnership Initiative in 1996 to expand academic cooperation in the region. China, Thailand and the Philippines have seen the major involvement thus far, and a meeting of partner institutions is scheduled as part of the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Asia 2000 meeting in Bangkok this November.

“We expect these academic ties to strengthen the position of the university and the state in the Asian science and technology arena. High technology companies like Promega are already operating in China,” Wiley says.

The UW–Madison enrolls more than 3,800 international students, many of whom are from Asia.

In 1998-1999, these included 624 from China, 466 from Korea, 305 from Taiwan, 309 from Indonesia, 168 from Japan, 154 from Thailand, 99 from Malaysia, and smaller numbers from other Asian countries.