Ohio State joins universities in commitment to accelerate potential COVID-19 solutions

Ohio State recently joined a multi-university effort that documents technology licensing principles designed to allow equitable access to university innovations related to COVID-19 during this public health crisis.

“Ohio State researchers are focused on solving problems during this unprecedented pandemic,” says Scott Osborne, vice president of corporate and economic engagement. “Our technology transfer team is committed to supporting, prioritizing and accelerating their work on COVID-19 solutions so that potential impacts can be realized in our communities as quickly as possible.”

The framework is a set of guidelines and principles designed to maximize access to COVID-related university innovations. Specifically, the universities are committing to:

• Using rapidly executable non-exclusive royalty-free licenses for products to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19 infections during the pandemic and for a short period following.
• Working to achieve alignment among all intellectual property stakeholders, including research sponsors, to facilitate broad and rapid access to technologies that have been requested to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Making any COVID-related technology transfer transactions a first priority.

Other signatories of the framework include Stanford, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ohio State is also helping to link researchers within the university who are interested in pivoting their efforts to COVID-19. Keepresearching.osu.edu, a new website developed by the Office of Research, in partnership with the Office of the Chief Information Officer, provides tools, resources and common space for researchers to learn about coronavirus-related projects. The site is a way for researchers to quickly connect and further work related to COVID-19.