Job Description:

The Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA) is a grant-supported program at the University of California, Davis that coordinates agricultural intellectual property management and development of new technologies to address needs in specialty crops and projects for humanitarian use in developing countries. PIPRA is recruiting a part-time consultant to assist in mediation of licensing and commercialization of promising research outputs that demonstrate efficacy in control, prevention and/or remediation of Pierce’s Disease in California grapevines. The consultant is expected to focus on implementing approaches to facilitate the transfer of technologies developed at Universities to development and commercialization phases with business partners.

Responsibilities:
Specific responsibilities include:

• Leading the development of strategies for licensing and commercialization of promising technologies that control and/or prevent Pierce’s Disease in California vineyards. Portfolios of technologies may include: genetically engineering technologies, integrated pest management and biopesticides.
• Developing and/or maintaining an efficient and cost-effective technology outreach strategy for facilitating commercialization of potential products.
• Establishing and maintaining a communication network of business entities with potential commercial interest in deployment of new products for Pierce’s Disease control.
• Staying present and aware of program research activities and providing insight relating to commercial utility, strengths and potential weaknesses.
• Assisting in identifying and encouraging synergistic relationships between scientists and research institutions to facilitate delivery of commercially viable solutions to Pierce’s Disease.

Positions Requirements:

• A graduate level degree in a relevant scientific scope; MBA strongly preferred.
• The consultant must be skilled at managing complex interactions among diverse public and private stakeholders to facilitate commercialization of research outputs.
• Ability to work with a project team to analyze business opportunities including identifying complementary or competitive technologies.
• Desired candidate will have experience identifying, negotiating and closing market business deals with commercial companies in addition to negotiating intellectual property management, technology transfer, licensing and hand-off of research outputs.
• Experience working on multi-disciplinary teams to develop and launch novel technologies and marketing technical solutions to Ag productions markets is strongly preferred.
• Experience in working with a wide range of products, biotechnologies, biopesticides, and new cultivars.
• Experience working in the US or global wine grape production industry is also preferred.
• Candidate must possess excellent verbal and written communication organizational, presentation and analytical
• skills. Interaction with California stakeholders is important; thus, pre-existing relationships and networks within the California wine industry are a plus.

Interested applicants should send a letter of interest, CV, and 3 references to Dr. Alan B. Bennett, Executive Director of PIPRA UC Davis by email at: abbennett@ucdavis.edu. 

Please submit application packages by January 15th, 2013.

The position will tentatively start February 2013 after application review.