Partnership builder

Tim McTiernan is reinventing research commercialization at U of T

When he was an executive with the Yukon government, Tim McTiernan represented the territory when, together with British Columbia and the U.S. Park Service in Alaska, it was trying to manage tourism traffic on the Tatshenshini River.A world-class whitewater rafting site, the river is also ecologically fragile.

“There were many interests to deal with and we realized we wouldn’t come to a satisfactory conclusion until we could form a partnership and meet all those interests,” says McTiernan.

McTiernan is applying the partnership principle to his new role as executive director of the University of Toronto’s research commercialization operation.

“The primary mandate of our office is to help U of T faculty to get their research into the marketplace and into applications in services in the public and private sector.We are not the commercialization police,although that’s how university tech transfer offices are too often perceived.And the only way for us not to become a choke point in the process is to build partnerships between the faculty and the commercialization community.”

In 2005, U of T’s Vice-President,Research and Associate Provost, John Challis, acted on recommendations in a report by former federal cabinet minister John Manley and reinvented U of T’s commercialization operation.The goal was to streamline what many had come to feel was an overly complex process of moving research conducted by faculty into the marketplace.

The new organization combines the former Innovations Foundation — a not-forprofit organization with a dotted line relationship to the university — and the university’s internal technology transfer office into one U of T department. While the new structure is important,Challis feels engaging McTiernan as executive director is the key to making the enterprise work.”When we began to search for this position,we knew we needed someone who could bring together all the various groups related to the commercialization process.Tim has such a diverse background in government, as a negotiator and as an academic that we knew he would be perfect for the job.”

McTiernan,a native of Kilkenny, Ireland,earned his PhD in psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1982.He and his wife then moved to the Yukon, where she had a job opportunity.Fifteen years in the Yukon government culminated with positions as Chief Government Negotiator for Land Claims and Self Government, as well as Deputy Minister of the Executive Council and Cabinet Secretary.

He then spent five years as president of Canadore College of Arts and Technology in North Bay,Ontario, strengthening his experience in partnership building as co-chair of the College-University Consortium Council of the Ontario Ministry of Training,Colleges and Universities.

Joining the Ontario government in 2002,he worked for four successive ministries as the assistant deputy minister responsible for the province’s core set of research and commercialization funding programs. “When the opportunity arose to work on the university side of research commercialization,I jumped at it.This is a very hot area right now and it will get hotter. One of the key ways to show relevance in research is through commercial application. Insulin and biodiesel fuel are perfect examples.That’s our job — to make sure we create a process that is user-friendly,that supports the research effort and that adds value to the university by deepening connections with public service and business and industry partners. It’s all about partnership.”