Procter & Gamble was presented with the private-sector award in recognition of its shift from closed to open innovation, which started in 2001.

The IPTEC Advisory Board chose the company from a shortlist that comprised ARM, Cancer Research Technology, Dolby, EMBL, Hewlett-Packard, Qualcomm, Smart Materials and Texas Instruments.

Max Planck Innovation received the public-sector institutions award. The German organization adds more than 100 inventions to its portfolio each year and manages more than 1,500 licences.

The Fraunhofer Institute, National Institutes of Health and Wellcome Trust were also on the shortlist.

The third award was for technology transfer in a university and went to the University of Leuven in Belgium. IPTEC selected the institution from a shortlist that also consisted of Columbia University, Imperial Innovations, MIT and WARF.

Marisol Garcia of NASA presented the awards during a cocktail reception at the meeting.

Previous winners of IPTEC technology transfer awards are IBM, Thomson, Stanford University, Tsinghua University, ESA and NASA.

IPTEC is being held in Frankfurt this week and features two days of case studies, workshops and new technology presentations as well as social and networking events for technology transfer professionals.

The conference programme, which focuses this year on the latest technology transfer trends and developments in emerging markets, has been put together by Managing IP, which is also represented on the advisory board.

A full report from IPTEC will be published in Managing IP’s July/August issue.