Technology Transfer Laws on University – Industry Linkage in Ethiopia: the Case of Ethiopian Leather Industry
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Date
2017-06
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Addis Ababa,University
Abstract
The initial purpose of this thesis is to explore the Ethiopian TOT laws on UIL in light of the country’s leather industry. By doing so, it tries to understand the status of TOT and UIL under the prevailing legal frameworks. TOT and UIL issues under the FDRE Constitution, the Patent Proclamation, current Investment Proclamation, Higher Education Proclamation, the repealed TOT Regulation and the MoST Procedural Directive for the Linkage of Education and Training, Research Institutions and Industries are explored. Moreover, national policies, among others STIP, Education and IPRs policies along with AAU and AASTU policies are also analyzed in depth. The inquiry reaches on that there is no comprehensive legal framework on TOT in general and UIL in particular. Rather some issues of TOT are scattered in several laws in the prevailing legal environment and not adequate. Moreover, there is no due policy concern and backup for inland TOT and UIL.
The leather industry is among the key manufacturing sectors in Ethiopia because it can link and fasten the linkage between industry and agriculture, it is labor intensive and it has a comparative and competitive advantage in the export market. Consulting with several scholarly works, policies and interviews, this thesis noticed that low technological status is the critical challenge in the Ethiopian leather industry. The challenge is characterized by poor educational qualification of employees, low status of R&D units, out dated and poorly planted automations, expensive imported machineries, spare parts and chemicals. On the other hand, it is proved that universities are starting to fulfill the technological needs of the subsector. The experiences of AAU and AASTU have proved the assertion. Both universities opened leather-specific courses. It has also proved that the universities can have a potential to improve the R&D units, they can develop machineries, spare parts and chemicals at least in laboratory level.
However, the link between universities and industries is a loose relationship manifested with informal mechanisms which aims at fulfilling short term needs. Generally, the thesis identified that the industries are not making universities as their key partners and the linkage between them is insignificant and needs more efforts to be strengthened. Moreover, leather industries don’t have their own policies to manage their link with universities. Even if UIL has given lesser emphasis in STIP and no legal backup and poor state of UIL in practice, it is also found that AAU and AASTU are formulating their own institutional policies to strengthen their links with universities. Experiences of the pioneering nations assessed in this thesis show that UIL can be encouraged and enhanced mainly through the instrumentality of specific laws.
Generally, it is proved that there has to be a comprehensive law on TOT in which inland TOT should get due treatment with foreign TOT. Furthermore, there has to be a specific law for UIL. Or otherwise, under the umbrella of the general TOT law, the issue of UIL should be addressed in a separate section.
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Technology Transfer Laws on University – Industry Linkage