Although the value of university research has been evident ever since a University of California biochemist co-founded Genentech Inc. in 1976, much of American higher education is still struggling to transform ideas into cash.
Brain-power isn't the problem nor is a scarcity of funding. University-based research spending has jumped nearly 45% since 2000, to $42.3 billion in fiscal 2005, according to the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) survey. Yet, the pool of university money earned from license fees has risen at half that pace, to $1.6 billion, excluding lumpsum payments. Half of the universities in the survey have fewer than six people in tech transfer.
The University of Florida is best known as a sports juggernaut but the university whizzed past all the rest of the 228 AUTM survey respondents, including such better endowed universities as John Hopkins and Harvard. The payoff is tangible: Florida's license income jumped from $11 million 10 years earlier to $40.3 million, more even than MIT or Caltech. Its office of technology licensing is now a profit center. The licensing office has an annual budget of $5 million and plays matchmaker, chasing down investors and executives who might be interested in commercializing their inventions. The out-of-nowhere success at Florida shows there are effective ways to attract capital and nurture campus-born technology industries.
The rise is the result of a change in strategy, which boils down to treating intellectual property like merchandise and then marketing these products to targeted customers. In a break from conventional wisdom, the university also shuns its own inventors when it comes to running startups, relying instead on hired guns who have proved they can make a go of business.
Florida chose to go after small businesses that don't require blockbusters to thrive. And it linked up with two underutilized business incubators in metro Gainesville to provide subsidized homes for these just-born businesses. The university's Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator, a 40,000-sq. ft. facility, outfitted with 19 wet labs and $1 million in gear, is fully occupied today by a dozen startups.
Ross C. DeVol, an economist at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, CA, warns: "If universities don't get actively involved in technology transfer, there are so many others around the world who will, and will be more successful."
Source: BusinessWeek, May 21, 2007