Nice story from New Mexico State University highlighting its participation in the NSF Innovation Corps — “Researcher teams with student” reads the headline.
The story highlights the value of the NSF I Corps and lean startup methodology as the firm pivoted from its initial focus on bullet resistant backpacks to its current focus on bringing improvement to the helmet industry. Its interesting to note that it was a university resource, Studio G, that appears to have coordinated and supported this team from NMSU. From the story by Vicki L. Nisbitt:
NMSU chemical engineering graduate student Brian Patterson is working with the technology through Studio G, and pursued the I-Corps funding opportunity with Xu and Studio G Director Kramer Winingham. The goal is to commercialize the lightweight and affordable material.
“Business ideas that are presented through this program have a direct impact on research and development and are closely related,” Patterson said. “Therefore, it’s important to understand the business components as they dictate the R&D direction.”
The team interviewed 100 potential customers to gain a better understanding of the market for their technology.
The I-Corps program and activities prepare scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and broaden the impact of their projects. One of the I-Corps objectives is to have an entrepreneurial student who shows potential in business and technology handle the commercialization…
Left to right: Mechanical engineering Research Associate Professor Roy L. Xu, chemical engineering graduate student Brian Patterson, and Studio G Director Dr. Kramer Winingham (Photo by Darren Phillips)
The DTMI material also has applications in football helmets and could help reduce concussion risk for players. The helmet shell materials with DTMI designs could increase impact-energy absorption at least 130 percent, compared to the current shell materials.
“A key finding during the I-Corps program was the opportunity for an advanced helmet shell design that could reduce concussions and adapt to other helmet technologies,” Winingham said. “This appears to be the best initial application for Dr. Xu’s technology.”
E. Gordon Gee, President of Ohio State University has an interesting piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education calling for more innovative and entrepreneurial leadership at public universities. While I don’t know if this is dramatically new (See Kerr, Bok, Etzkowitz), it appears that years of slow growth and weak state finances have forced Gee to rethink what he and his university do. Some snippets from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
This nation and our world are not merely in a recession; we are also experiencing a resetting of the global economy. All signs point to a new normal in which those of us engaged in higher education must accept that no amount of pleading or whining or denying will alter what now seems an inexorable reality. We will earn what support we get by virtue of our excellence—and our hustle, our ingenuity, and our creativity.
Later,
As a starting point, this means the following: finding innovative ways to leverage the market, assessing university-owned assets and considering shedding those that do not contribute to our central mission, commercializing technological innovations, and simplifying processes.
And,
Along those same lines, this past spring and summer we began using a new approach to commercializing our technology innovations. Ohio State’s tech-commercialization effort is just beginning, but we believe it holds great promise—for bringing innovations by faculty members to market, for rewarding them for their work, and for helping to sustain the university in the process. Doing so is not turning the university into a business, it is enabling us to support our core academic values despite volatility in the world around us.
The core question, which all entrepreneurs ask, is what kind of value can a public university and does this provide value to its stakeholders. It is not just about raising revenues and cutting cost.
Looking forward to learning more about Gee and the work he is doing at OSU. Anyone in Columbus want to weight in?
Good piece by Sam Petulla highlighting the recent Association of University Technology Managers survey on technology commercialization at select universities in America. Decent growth given overall higher education and economic trends. Good charts in the full piece. From Inside Higher Education:
Although economic growth stagnated in 2009, a new survey says scientific research from about 150 universities created 555 startup companies and resulted in over 4,500 patent optioning and licensing deals last year, earning $1.8 billion in payouts for the institutions in the process. The numbers continue a decade-long trend of the increased role of universities in generating commercial products for businesses.
“Technology transfer” — as the process of universities commercializing their findings is known — allows businesses to turn the fruits of academic research into new technologies, such as new drugs and energy-saving products. In return, universities collect licensing fees or royalties, or a partial ownership stake in a product. Universities also typically have a small staff dedicated to brokering deals on hand — not an insignificant source of employment itself.
Technology transfer offices still garner a lot of attention and resources, but did they play a role in Facebook, Google, H-P, Under Armour, Gatorade, and Groupon? Does anyone have any evidence on any of these?
(I have read Rovell’s book on Gatorade — First in Thirst — so I do know the University of Florida did not really want anything to do with the creation of the drink in the early years. When it became worth hundreds of millions, the lawsuits began. )
It appears the full survey is only available for purchase. So, there are some news stories and press releases out there. For example, a Dec. 20, University of Utah press release based on the survey: “U of Utah: No. 1 for Startups, Overtakes MIT in Number of Spinoff Companies.”
The IPWatchDog blog has a nice look at the piece including some good charts on tops universities and hospitals in terms of funding and commercialization of technology. Some good information on the survey and trends from Gene Quinn at IPWatchDog, Inc.:
In terms of mechanics, the 2009 AUTM survey was sent to 322 U.S. institutions, which is up 12 from 310 U.S. institutions that were contacted in FY2008. Of the 322 U.S. Institutions contacted 249 were universities and colleges, 69 were U.S. hospitals and research institutions, and four were third-party patent management and investment firms. The response rate was 56.2 percent, which included 153 U.S. universities, 27 U.S. hospitals and research institutions, and one third-party patent management and investment firm.
In 2009, 181 institutions reported 20,309 disclosures, an increase of 194 (0.96 percent) compared with the 20,115 disclosures from 189 institutions in 2008. This marked an uninterrupted trend of annual increases in total disclosures since 2000.
I’d love to show you some of IPWatchDog’s great charts, etc., but given the name of the site I’d guess they wouldn’t want me to do that (or would they bow to the ethos of the internet — I have already provided multiple links to their site).
Either way, there is some good stuff out there on the latest AUTM survey and they are worth exploring.
I am not sure how I have missed David Lerner, Director of the Columbia University Venture Lab, but I have. Just found him. Here is a snippet from a post in December 2009 on the coming tidal wave of University Entrepreneurship:
According to AUTM statistics, American universities are now spinning-off companies based on university intellectual property at a clip approaching 600 per year. In addition, as demonstrated in a recent white-paper authored by a team led by MIT’s legendary Ed Roberts, this number of 600 per year is actually dwarfed by the thousands of other companies being launched each year by university entrepreneurs forming companies of their own that are not based on their university’s intellectual property. Another important development is the well-known fact that as the costs of launching a company continue to decrease due to the advent of cloud computing and the like- so has it steadily become much easier for university-age students to try their hand at entrepreneurship.
Over these past four years I have also observed more and more universities rising to the challenge of empowering and enabling their populations of fledgling entrepreneurs. More and more schools are offering entrepreneurship education and lectures, more and more tech transfer offices are setting up New Ventures divisions run by experienced entrepreneurs/investors and as a result we are seeing new programs bubbling up everywhere. It is now increasingly common to hear about various university programs offering entrepreneur office hours, seed-funding competitions and new entrepreneur-in-residence and/or venture mentorship services. Amazingly, such programs were the exception and not the rule when I first arrived on campus some four short years ago.
Last week officials from the Obama Administration Commerce Department met with U.S. Research University officials in order to figure out how to do even more with research that is generated — often with federal funding.
While TTOs (technology transfer offices) have never much sense to me in today’s marketplace, it is where the debate has been centered for decades so I am not surprised that this is where the debate is today. It has become clear that the Kauffman ideas around technology licensing of federally funded research (which Harvard named a top 10 breakthrough idea) will be a driver surrounding some new legislation and possibly/probably funding for some elite research universities.
In my mind, the reality is that a culture of entrepreneurship needs to be instilled in the researchers. Some will take to it and others will not, but schools must begin to engage researchers. Explain to them that entrepreneurship is the tool to that they can use to make an impact with there research.
That being said, many of the greatest student entrepreneurs and others who come off the campus have nothing to do with technology transfer. That is not to say that they do not make use of campus infrastructure and assets, its just that the technology transfer office is not a factor in their creation of high impact firms.
While I understand that this is about increasing return on federal funding of R&D, this policy discussion and hoopla around technology transfer will crowd out the attention of University leaders and administrators as they try to get into this game.
Maybe they should create a business plan competition that guarantees the winners get funding for another grant cycle as I think that is where much of their non-research time goes — securing funding.. This might free them up to think about commercializing their ideas and findings rather than going after the next grant. Any thoughts?
Interesting piece by Doug Lederman in today’s Inside Higher Education pointing to new research on the number of new ventures, start-ups, patents and licensing fees that are coming out of major research Universities in the U.S.
Although the association discourages direct comparisons in its survey, “U.S. Licensing Activity Survey: FY 2008,” because the roster of participating colleges changes a bit from year to year, the technology managers’ group points out that most of the indicators show “a steady increase in the amount of technology transfer activity,” Arundeep S. Pradhan, AUTM’s president and associate vice president for technology transfer and business development at Oregon Health & Science University, said in a news release about the findings.
The post features a great chart that compares many schools/systems, highlighting their federal research funds, start-ups, patents, and licensing fees. There is a huge discrepancy in performance by the schools in the charts.
Interesting piece by Doug Lederman in today’s Inside Higher Education pointing to new research on the number of new ventures, start-ups, patents and licensing fees that are coming out of major research Universities in the U.S.
Although the association discourages direct comparisons in its survey, “U.S. Licensing Activity Survey: FY 2008,” because the roster of participating colleges changes a bit from year to year, the technology managers’ group points out that most of the indicators show “a steady increase in the amount of technology transfer activity,” Arundeep S. Pradhan, AUTM’s president and associate vice president for technology transfer and business development at Oregon Health & Science University, said in a news release about the findings.
The post features a great chart that compares many schools/systems, highlighting their federal research funds, start-ups, patents, and licensing fees. There is a huge discrepancy in performance in the simple below.
Found this cool campus entrepreneur over at Vator.tv. HubDub.com is a site that lets you try to predict the news. Fun, casual gaming involving news forecasting. Great video from the AP on the company. The CEO is Nigel Eccles and he appears to be working with the Edinburgh Technology Transfer Centre.
Interesting article from the IHT, highlighting difference between tech spinoffs in the US and the UK. The lead is about a Prof who is trying to create non-sticky chewing gum (to benefit cities and others that must continually remove gum from sidewalks — easier than caning people like they do in Singapore).
The inspiration for Cosgrove’s non-stick chewing gum came on a trip to academic conferences in the United States – not in a conference hall, but on American sidewalks, where he noticed wads of hardened chewing gum. “You think perhaps it’s pigeon poo,” he recalled.
He added, “I came home, and as things go round, I tried to make a polymer, to get as low an adhesive quality as possible.”
Eventually, his team came up with a formulation of polymers that would not stick. To determine whether it came off sidewalks and other surfaces, they pitted it against standard chewing gums on main streets across western England. While the other gums stuck, Cosgrove’s rinsed off with rainwater – “though some surfaces are better than others,” he said, calling leather a “terrible” magnet.
Despite those promising results, Cosgrove still had no interest in starting a business. Roger Pettman, an entrepreneur with a doctorate degree in organic chemistry, had to coax him.
Pettman had taken ChiRex, a pharmaceutical start-up, to an initial public offering on the Nasdaq before it was acquired in 2000 by the French chemical maker Rhodia.
When Bristol University held an enterprise competition in the summer of 2005 to showcase research at the school, Cosgrove’s chewing gum won. Having raised seed money from the university to get started, he raised $1.5 million in a first round of fund-raising from several venture capital funds. Last February, a group of venture capital funds led by Swarraton Partners pumped another $4 million into Revolymer.
This is a really interesting piece and worth the read, however, it again confirms my suspicion that when people think of entrepreneurship and new venture development on the campus they are only thinking tech and tech transfer.
Campus Entrepreneurship 