U of A Signs on to Sharing Technology and Innovation to Respond to COVID-19

The University of Arkansas and its Office of Technology Ventures have endorsed guidelines that allow for rapid sharing of discoveries that will aid in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U of A joins research universities such as Stanford, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology as signatories to the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) COVID-19 Licensing Guidelines, which stipulate that innovations will be made accessible through "time-limited, non-exclusive royalty-free licenses, in exchange for the licensees' commitment to rapidly make and broadly distribute products and services to prevent, diagnose, treat and contain COVID-19 and protect healthcare workers during the pandemic."

The Office of Technology Ventures is working to make transfer of COVID-19 breakthroughs its top priority.

"The University of Arkansas, like other major research institutions around the world, is a rich source of intellectual property and know-how that companies could use to create the next COVID-19 diagnostic test, therapeutic, vaccine or personal protective equipment improvement, which could have a huge impact in our battle to overcome this pandemic," said David Snow, executive director of Technology Ventures. "The AUTM framework reiterates our commitment as a community partner to foster access to U of A technologies as quickly as possible."

Technology Ventures is a unit of the Office of Economic Development and works closely with the Office of Research and Innovation.

About the University of Arkansas Technology Ventures: The University of Arkansas Technology Ventures has initiated a program to commercialize a wide range of research tools, whether patented or not. Technology Ventures manages, protects and commercializes the intellectual property portfolio of the University of Arkansas. Technology Ventures serves the university's faculty, staff and students as well as external inventors and entrepreneurs to disseminate knowledge, technology and products to the public market to generate revenue and future research support. In this way, we also serve the public as it is our responsibility to enable public utilization of products derived from university research.