The truth behind Tech Transfer

Tech Transfer is a self-published first novel.

If that rings alarm bells, silence them. Daniel S. Greenberg knows science, especially science funding, administration and politics in the US, better than anyone else alive today. Add the book’s subtitle -- Science, Money, Love and the Ivory Tower -- and the package is not too different from a couple of his other titles: Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism and Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion. The difference, of course, is love, of which there is precious little in Tech Transfer, although plenty of lust. Greenberg has taken the stuff he’s learned in more than 40 years of reporting about science, and written about in sober analysis and non-fiction, and used it to embroider a very slightly different picture.

He’s done this before, sharing snapshots from the life of Grant Swinger, erstwhile director of the Center for the Absorption of Federal Funds and recently President of the University of Avarice. Swinger returns the favour with a backhanded puff for Tech Transfer, which is the full-length portrait.

It is a truly delightful romp through the modern American university and its multitude of relationships, internal and external. I won’t say more here -- except to point out that my judgement may well be clouded because Greenberg is a friend of long standing. There are other¹ reviews and an interesting review cum interview out there that you may want to check. Or you could trust me, something that could hardly be said of anyone in Tech Transfer.

My rating: 4 out of 5