Technology Transfer: A 21st Century Model for Engineering Education

by C. L. Max Nikias, Dean, USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Every day, engineers in U.S. universities are solving problems. But society receives no benefit if their solutions never leave the laboratories or the pages of academic journals. While it is tempting to believe that good technologies always find their niche, that’s no longer true, and maybe never was true.

Mark Stevens, right, holds a USC Trojans football helmet while Dean Nikias of the Viterbi School of Engineering, left, holds a jersey commemorating the $22 million that Stevens donated to create the Mark and Mary Stevens Institute for Technology Commercialization (SITeC).

As the pace of modern life continues to accelerate, engineers just can’t afford to assume that people will recognize their clever ideas. And engineering schools can no longer be judged solely by the quality of their research and teaching. Of growing importance is how well those schools put the intellectual capital they are creating to the service of the greater good.

There has been growing concern recently about the erosion of the long-standing U.S. edge in science and engineering. In 1985, U.S. schools graduated more than 76,000 engineers, but that number had declined 20 percent by 2004 when less than 60,000 engineers graduated. Meanwhile, China, Japan, India, Russia and Europe now graduate substantially more engineers than we do. China and India together produce almost 320,000 engineers annually. Many of those engineers attend U.S. engineering graduate schools because this is where the big research programs are and in particular, it is where the new technologies that drive economies are being created.

U.S. engineering schools, for their part, are glad to have these international students because there aren’t enough domestic engineering students to staff university laboratories. In addition to engineering innovations, international students bring American values home with them when they return to their native countries.

It is vitally important that today’s engineering students not only learn the traditional technical engineering skills, and learn them well, but that they be immersed in the process that ultimately determines engineering success – the commercialization of new technologies.

At the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, our singular response to this challenge is the Mark and Mary Stevens Institute for Technology Commercialization (SITeC).

While many research universities have technology transfer programs at the institutional level, it is an integral part of the overall learning experience at practically none of them. SITeC’s location within the USC Viterbi School of engineering is also somewhat unique. There, it will support an academic program of comprehensive commercialization education and training for engineering students and for faculty. Engineering faculty today must effectively administer the technology innovations conceived in their research laboratories. And in the commercial world, professional engineers must be skilled in protecting and developing their companies’ intellectual property resources.

» Page 2 of 4