Ideas get generated. Patents get filed. Research gets published. But somewhere between a promising concept and real commercial impact, momentum stalls. Not because people aren’t working hard, but because the ones responsible for different parts of the journey rarely share the same room, the same language, the same strategic conversation, or a clear-eyed view of what AI actually can do for them.
LEAP changes that.
What Is LEAP?
LEAP is Wellspring’s inaugural annual Innovation Summit. It is a peer-driven gathering for senior leaders across Innovation Management (IM) and Intellectual Property (IP). It’s not just a user conference; it’s a cross-discipline industry summit designed for everyone from department heads and C-suite executives to directors of technology transfer and IP experts.
LEAP 2026 comes to life at two global hubs:
- Amsterdam at nHow Amsterdam RAI, Sept. 28–30
- Atlanta at the Georgia Tech Hotel, Oct. 21–23
Two locations. One community. The theme: Game Changers — the leaders redefining how innovation and IP perform inside complex organizations. (Curious what kind of Game Changer you are or aspire to be? Take the quick quiz.)
Built for Two Worlds, Intentionally
LEAP brings together two communities that don’t typically share conference space: corporate IM professionals, and IP and Technology Transfer Office (TTO) professionals.
That’s not an accident. It’s the point.
Corporate innovation leaders are under growing pressure to show measurable growth from their innovation investments and move beyond what some call “innovation theater” into genuine, repeatable performance. They need external pipelines, licensing opportunities, and research partnerships to fuel what’s next.
TTO and IP professionals from universities, research institutions, and licensing offices are sitting on exactly that. They’re building ecosystems, commercializing breakthrough research, and searching for the corporate partners who can move their work forward into the market.
These groups need each other. LEAP brings them together.
What to Expect
LEAP is not just another user conference, it’s a premier innovation lifecycle summit that will cover topics for transformational change in IM and IP. It features a cross-audience keynote from renowned innovation growth advisor Cris Beswick, roundtable discussions, learning tracks, and user training sessions for a fully customized experience:
Innovation Management Track — Sessions on AI’s practical role in IM, portfolio intelligence, moving from strategic planning to execution, innovation maturity, and why innovation breaks at scale (and how to fix it). Expect candid conversations from practitioners who’ve been in the room when things went wrong and found their way through. With in depth Accolade training and demonstrations from how different organizations utilize the configurability of the platform to drive growth innovation.
Intellectual Property Track — Sessions on technical storytelling, building innovation ecosystems within and beyond the institution, CRM management in a TTO setting, managing IP renewals efficiently, and what it takes to win the right corporate innovation partners. Real-world insight for offices doing more with less. With in depth Evolve module training, updates, and AI tool developments letting TTOs get even more out of Evolve.
Industry Track — Current Wellspring customers and attendees get hands-on training, product roadmaps, demos, and best practices to get the most from Accolade, Evolve, and the rest of the Wellspring suite.
Across all of it — Structured peer exchange, roundtables, and networking designed to spark the kinds of conversations that don’t happen at a webinar.
Here are some highlight sessions on the agenda (more coming soon):
|
Accolade Stream |
Industry Stream |
Evolve Stream |
|
Cris Beswick - Keyote |
||
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The Innovation Cascade: Linking Strategic Planning to Execution Doug Collins / Wellspring |
Technical Storytelling: Bridging the Gap From Knowledge to Application Dennis O. Smith / Johns Hopkins |
Agreements & IP Compliance in Evolve Malcolm McCarry, Jamie Mooney, Mike Madigan / Wellspring |
|
Portfolio Intelligence: Making Better Innovation Investment Decisions Darold Kopren / Wellspring |
Advancing Portfolio Excellence and Enabling More Effective Innovation Across the Company Sharlene Williams / Dupont |
From Contract to Impact: Scaling Successful Vendor Partnerships in Technology Transfer Ecosystem Pratima Ready & Kim Jones Ross / University of California, Office of the President |
|
Accolade Product Roadmap: Implications of AI in IM Darcy Greiner / Wellspring |
Wellspring's Integrated AI Approach: Connecting Your Own AI Tools into Accolade and Evolve Scot DeLancey / Wellspring |
From Campus to Community: Building a University Innovation Ecosystem Darren Fast / University of Alberta |
|
From Innovation Theater to Innovation Performance Chris Townsend / Wellspring |
The Inescapable Future of AI in Innovation: How AI Will Shape the Future of the Entire Innovation Lifecycle Chris Townsend / Wellspring |
Customer Panel: Right Sizing Translational Funding Chris Manchini / West Virginia University Tatiana Litvin-Vechnyak / Georgetown University |
|
Accolade Product Roadmap: Implications of AI in IM Darcy Greiner / Wellspring |
How High Growth Companies Innovate Chris Townsend / Wellspring |
Customer Panel: Astria: Still working with an Attorney? Why Astria is the BEST solution to manage IP Renewals, Efficient Workflows, and Streamlined Business Practices Ronnie Georghiou + Customers / Wellspring |
| Additional Accolade User Trainings |
Challenges of Adopting and Developing Radical (Vs. Incremental) Innovations Ronnie Georghiou & Iain King / Wellspring |
Additional Evolve User Trainings |
Why Now? Because AI Is Reshaping Innovation
This isn’t hyperbole. It’s the reality that IP and IM professionals are navigating right now.
AI is moving from novelty to infrastructure across the innovation lifecycle, automating disclosure triage, accelerating prior art searches, surfacing portfolio signals that used to require analyst hours. For TTO offices, entirely new deal categories are emerging around AI training data licensing. For IM leaders, the pressure to separate AI’s genuine productivity gains from the noise is real and immediate.
What’s missing for most organizations is peer-level, practitioner-tested insight from people who’ve actually made the calls. LEAP dedicates significant programming to exactly that: what's working, what's overhyped, and what to do about it in your organization in 2026.
Jump In
Whether you’re an enterprise innovation leader looking to sharpen your portfolio strategy or an IP professional ready to modernize your operations, there’s a seat at this table for you.
Explore LEAP 2026 and register at wellspring.com/leap-2026.
Stay tuned to Wellspring for more details in the coming weeks leading up to LEAP.