Ask ten people in academic technology transfer to describe their career path, and you’ll likely get ten different answers: a ladder for some, a maze for others, and for more than a few, something closer to a jungle gym: sideways moves, unplanned detours, and progress that doesn’t always look like progress from the outside.
That was the starting point for a recent small-group roundtable on the topic of career advancement in tech transfer offices (TTOs): what’s working, what isn’t, and what people wish someone had told them earlier. The conversation brought together tech transfer professionals from institutions of varying size and maturity. What follows is an honest snapshot of a field still figuring out what career growth can and should look like. As the industry evolves and grows, it is clear that the way things have been done for the last 30+ years, is not likely to be effective as TTOs keep pace with increasing responsibilities, regulatory changes and retaining specialized talent.
A Field Without a Defined Path
One of the first things participants agreed on is that tech transfer simply doesn’t have the well-worn career ladders found in many other professions. Titles vary wildly from one institution to the next, job catalogs are often borrowed from broader university HR structures that were never designed with tech transfer roles in mind, and advancement can hinge as much on institutional size, budget cycles, and leadership turnover as it does on individual performance.
That ambiguity extends to the very definition of “career growth” itself. For some participants, growth means a new title and the validation that comes with it. For others, it’s less about labels and more about autonomy: being trusted to run point on more complex projects or higher-profile deals without someone double-checking the work.
Excerpted from “What Career Growth Looks Like in Tech Transfer (And What’s Standing in the Way)” by Jodie Richardson in the latest issue of TechInsight.
