EXPAND RESEARCHERS’ WORK WITH THE PRIVATE SECTOR

Strategy 1: Encourage Faculty to Disclose New Inventions

• Increased Contact with Faculty Researchers — Staff gave presentations on intellectual property at departmental meetings and reached out to individual principal investigators. Principal investigators served by the division were encouraged to spread the word about their experiences to their peers.

• Brought Awareness to Administrators — Staff members briefed deans and associate deans of research on what technology transfer means and the best ways to gain value from the technology transfer function.

• Relationships with University Advancement — The department accelerated relationships with University Advancement for industry outreach and continued to encourage partnerships for leveraging IP for donors, foundation funding and corporate licensing.

• Increased Reporting Monthly reporting to served PIs and deans keeps them up-to-date on the activities of Research Commercial Agreements and encourages more disclosures and reduces problems with faculty not being aware of contract status.

Strategy 2: Market Intellectual Property for Licensing and Corporate-Sponsored Research

• Launched IN-PART — The department joined IN-PART, a matchmaking platform for university-industry collaboration that provides the initial introduction for new licenses in technology transfer. The tool allows the department to connect with potential licensees globally.

• Increased Licenses — The department realized licenses for IP the department had been marketing since starting in 2015, increasing the number of licenses from 12 in FY 2020 to 35 in FY 2021. Of the 35 licenses, 25 were copyrights and 10 patent-based, demonstrating that software-based and educational technologies provide a great value and are of high Interest to solve commercial needs.

• Targeting Industry Contacts Staff developed collaborations with companies and UNT inventors; intern marketing reports were used to target potential licensees; licensing consultants were used to target specific contacts at large potential licensees; staff connected with potential licensees through LinkedIn; and used data mining related patents for relevance to the UNT portfolio targeting potential licensing opportunities.

• Spinout Companies Staff discussed with inventors and their graduate students options for spinout companies based on their technology.

• Industry Visibility and Networking Staff spoke at or attended industry events to increase visibility and push specific technologies.

• Murphy Center for Entrepreneurship — Research Commercial Agreements worked with UNT’s Murphy Center for Entrepreneurship to target potential licensees.

Strategy 3: Support/Operate an Effective and Efficient Research Contracting Process

• Research Commercial Agreements Continued to operate research contracting with the same time-sensitivity and understanding of commercial needs since establishing Research Commercial Agreements in FY 2020.

• Guaranteed Turnaround for Contract Response — Research Commercial Agreements implemented a four-tier guaranteed turnaround time for contract response.

• Increased Communications — Monthly reporting continued to keep PIs and deans up-to-date on activities of Research Commercial Agreements and encouraged additional disclosures. Transparency and clear processes were maintained from FY 2020 by collaboration with college administrators and bi-weekly meetings with University Advancement.

CHAPTER 2 By the Numbers

Unt Profile

UNT is a Carnegie-ranked Tier One research university, which is a very high research activity university, and is the flagship university in the UNT System, located in Denton, Texas.

UNT has 14 colleges and schools:

• G. Brint Ryan College of Business

• College of Education

• College of Engineering

• College of Health and Public Service

• College of Information

• College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

• College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism

• College of Music

• College of Science

• College of Visual Arts and Design

• Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism

• Honors College

• New College

• Toulouse Graduate School®

UNT Sponsored Awards FY 2016 - FY 2022

UNT Research Award by Source FY 2022

Federal Private State

Notable New Grant Awards

In any one year, UNT faculty are awarded many significant and important grants based on proposals for research submitted. We would love to share all of them, but due to space limitations, we have chosen a few notable award highlights.

College Of Health And Public Service

Erin Schafer, Professor and Director of Graduate

Studies

Department of Audiology

Grant Title: Impact of Listening Effort on Hearing Aid Adoption and Performance in Adults

Grant Amount: $274K

Agency: Hearing Industry Research Consortium (HIRC)

Co-PIs: Sharon Miller and Boji Lam

Abstract: According to the World Health Organization, disabling hearing loss affects approximately 25% of older (60+ years) worldwide, and by the year 2050, almost one in every ten people will experience disabling hearing loss. Persons with hearing loss often report increased listening effort and fatigue in challenging acoustic environments relative to peers with normal hearing, suggesting peripheral deficits increase reliance on top-down cognitive resources. Despite the large population of individuals with hearing loss and the known consequences of untreated hearing loss, only one-third or fewer adults with disabling hearing loss consistently use hearing aids (Jorgensen & Novak, 2020; Lin et al., 2013). While hearing aids and other hearing assistance technologies are commonly prescribed by audiologists to improve performance in difficult listening environments, how these technologies interact with cognition, motivation, and emotion in impacting listening effort and hearing aid adoption in persons with hearing loss remains unclear. As a result, the proposed exploratory research study will examine how individual differences in cognition, motivation, and emotion predict hearing aid adoption and self-perceived hearing aid benefit as well as how interventions with hearing technology (i.e., hearing aids and remote microphone technology) modulate physiological measures of listening effort and attention in new hearing aid users. There is a critical need to determine how individual patient characteristics drive hearing aid usage and modulate listening effort to maximize social and communication outcomes in persons with hearing loss.

Why the Grant Matters:

“We believe hearing health care is important because approximately 25% adults ages 60 years and older hearing loss that impacts their interactions with friends

Schafer

and loved ones and their overall quality of life. At this time, only one-third or fewer older adults who really need hearing aids are consistently using them. In our study, we hope to find out how cognition, motivation, and emotion predict consistent hearing aid use and self-perceived hearing aid benefit. We are thrilled to receive this grant, which has the potential to help our participants and the larger population of adults with hearing loss. Long term, we hope our research will help hearing health care professionals know how to modify current counseling and rehabilitation practices to improve hearing aid use and adoption in older individuals who have hearing loss that negatively impacts their life.” – Erin

College Of Engineering

Haifeng Zhang, Professor Department of Materials Science

Grant Title: Multi-Modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature Monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters

Grant Amount: $615,750

Agency: Department of Energy

Professor Haifeng Zhang is researching new and safer ways to store nuclear waste, thanks to a three-year $800,000 grant from the Department of Energy.

Nuclear waste is stored in stainless steel containers, which radiate extreme amounts of heat that can cause cracks in the container and waste to leak. Zhang’s proposal is to create a new sensor that could monitor the container’s pressure and temperature while withstanding high amounts of heat. The sensor would also be able to signal when the container may be reaching a breaking point.

Zhang is the principle investigator, working alongside co-principle investigators Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Energy Technology Laboratory. The project’s funding also goes toward hiring two graduate students and purchasing new equipment.

Why the Grant Matters:

“There is no existing technology that has been one-hundred percent proven to work to monitor what is happening inside the cannister,” said Zhang. “With our proposal, we’re hoping to change that. What we’re doing here has never been done before.” –

Haifeng

Zhang