Innovation Pipeline

Universities eyeing a financial windfall from tech innovation may be undermining long-term gains.

Last time we checked, innovation was still considered one of America’s strongest advantages in the global economy. So it’s discouraging to discover a study that says U.S. universities have policies in place which hinder innovation.

The research report is from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. It was released by the Innovation Policy and the Economy Summit and sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nation’s leading economic research organization.

Bottom line: the existing system of commercializing innovation is based on what the report terms a “homerun” mentality. Kauffman researchers Robert Litan, Lesa Mitchell and E. J. Reedy argue that university leadership must refocus from a patent-licensing model that seeks to maximize income to a volume model that emphasizes the number of university innovations and the speed at which they’re commercialized.

The report goes on to point out that there are multiple pathways for commercializing university innovation. Those pathways can provide broader access to innovation, allow greater volume of dealflow, support standardization, decrease redundancy of innovation and shorten the cycle time for commercialization. These models include open-source collaboration, copyright, nonexclusive licensing and a focus on developing the social networks for graduate students and faculty to commercialize all types of innovations.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that universities either don’t have a clue about how innovation works or just don’t care. If their plan is to focus on the winning lottery ticket, they’re crippling the system that helps transform an idea into a business.

That pot of innovation gold is going to vanish unless some of the not-so-smart universities don’t get onboard, either by reading a book or two on innovation or convening a public forum on campus to which they invite the business school and entrepreneurs from various departments to debate the issue.

Of course, no one wants a university to be a factory or manufacturing center for hire by public corporations. But there is such a thing as middle ground.

Let’s not forget that a great deal of economic windfall has come to universities because of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act. It was intended to speed the process of moving technologies from the lab to the market by clearing the way for universities to claim legal and, hence, financial rights to federal government-funded innovations developed by their faculty.

As China and India continue to gain greater advantage in the world of technology and innovation, why should America’s leadership in technological innovation suffer a setback because of universities myopic focus on quick financial rewards? Lee Bruno