The PIRE-ECCI will create a unique program for graduate education in technology transfer. Rather than focus on the local bench-to-marketplace issues that are already being discussed at UCSB and on many other US campuses, we will emphasize International Tech-transfer (ITT), by targeting the special problems, concerns and challenges of bench-to-marketplace transitions in a global context. In particular, the PIRE-ECCI will focus on the landscape for technology transfer and doing high-tech business in the rapidly evolving and expanding Pacific Rim economies, and in international collaborative business ventures between US and Chinese companies.
UCSB's College of Engineering already hosts an innovative educational program for students seeking careers in technology companies. Undergraduate and graduate students from the sciences, engineering and liberal arts supplement their discipline-specific technical training with high-tech business skills by participating in the Technology Management Program (TMP). It features cutting-edge curriculum taught by engineering faculty and local entrepreneurs, as well as team-based interdisciplinary projects. The ITT component of the PIRE-ECCI educational program will be designed and implemented in collaboration with TMP, whose director, Dr. Gary Hansen, is a member of our local Steering Committee.
A key feature of the ITT
component of our education plan is a Chinese Technology-Transfer Study Tour
(CTTT). The essence of the tour will be visits to companies with headquarters
or major branch locations in China that are involved with international
technology transfer as part of their business. The CTTT is modeled after the
Global Business Study Tours that have been so successful as part of the worlds
leading Business Schools (UC Berkeley, Columbia University, UC Los Angeles,
University of Washington, IMDE) where students plan and implement a study
program outside their home country. These business and cultural field trips
will include personal meetings with executives, company and factory tours,
cultural excursions, and social dinners with Chinese colleagues in the private
sector. At the close of the 2007 and 2009 Dalian
Workshop on Electron Chemistry and Catalysis at Interfaces, a CTTT will be
offered for interested participants. These tours will be planned and led by
third- and fourth-year graduate students, advised and accompanied by PIRE-ECCI and TMP faculty. Students will have the
possibility of earning academic credit through tour participation.