Director of Innovation Services - KUCTC

Department

Executive Vice Chancellor

KU Center for Technology Commercialization

Director of Innovation Services - KUCTC

Professional Staff

The Director, Innovation Services supports all of KU including the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, the KU Center for Technology Commercialization (KUCTC) seeks to manage discoveries and innovations arising from KU research so that they may have greater impact, benefit the public, and promote economic development. Reporting to the Executive Director of KUCTC, the Director, Innovation Services, is a senior member of KUCTC working alongside the KUCTC licensing team and in collaboration with other KU units to grow the innovation and commercialization pipelines resulting from research for KU.

The Director plays a key role and force multiplier, increasing engagement, building capacity, and assisting innovators in navigating internal and external innovation resources.

• Innovation Scouting – Works with academic and clinical researchers to raise Intellectual Property (IP) awareness, foster innovation, and identify discoveries, inventions, and other innovations with commercial potential for disclosure to KUCTC. Develops and executes outreach strategies to increase engagement with KUCTC and disclosure of new inventions across KU campuses and disciplines
• Training/Education – Leads collaboration with other KU innovation ecosystem partners (examples – School of Business, Research Administration, Office of Economic Development, KU Innovation Park) to create and deliver formalized IP, technology transfer, and entrepreneurial training programs to university research communities.
• Pipeline Building – Cultivates a pipeline of prospective projects for internal KU innovation and commercialization programing as well as specific external opportunities.
• Gap Fund – Will assist in the seeking of resources to support the creation of a “gap” or other early innovation funds at KU to support pre-license validation, POC, prototyping or technology maturation efforts. Will lead KUCTC efforts to engage with external opportunities for gap funding.
• Collaboration & Connections – Work collaboratively with KUCTC’s licensing team, KU Innovation Park partners, university I-Corp team, and others within the KU innovation ecosystem to achieve impact from technology transfer, commercialization, and new venture creation activities.
• Track - Serves as a consistent resource and point of contact within the University for KU startup companies. Maintains metrics regarding KU startups (examples - investments, follow-on funding, employment numbers, location). In collaboration with KU Innovation Park, works to connect KU startups to partners and resources to aid their growth and development.
• Consultation & Navigation – Serves as an early point of contact for researchers, providing guidance and assistance as they explore technology transfer, commercialization, entrepreneurship, and new venture creation. Serves as an valued resource for researchers regarding University policies and practices related to new venture creation. Serves as a connector to supporting resources within and external to KU.

Lawrence, KS or Kansas City, KS (with collaboration across KU campus locations)

This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. It is only a summary of the typical functions of the job, not an exhaustive list of all possible job responsibilities, tasks, duties, and assignments. Furthermore, job duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field of study.

• Four (4) years of experience in position that required knowledge of technology transfer, intellectual property, university research environments, innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems, startup formation, SBIR/STTR funding, innovation programming, research administration, and higher education organizational structures.…