Reports about the commercialization of university research that focus solely on the efforts of TTOs tend to underestimate the full amount of commercialization activity, according to a study by researchers at Indiana University in Bloomington. Writing in Research Policy, David B. Audretsch, PhD, and Taylor Aldridge, PhD, find that a significant number of productive researchers bypass university patent and licensing offices. “We learned that there are more start-up businesses coming out of university research than had been measured,” says Audretsch, distinguished professor and Ameritech chair of economic development and director of Indiana-U’s Institute for Development Strategies at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Aldridge is a research fellow at the Institute.

Audretsch and Aldridge developed a database of the largest one-fifth of National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant awardees between 1998 and 2002. From that group, they identified 392 scientists who had earned patents and examined how their research was commercialized. They found that 70% of the scientists chose to commercialize their research by assigning all patents to their university TTOs, but 30% chose a “backdoor route” to commercialization and did not assign at least some of their patents to the TTO. “Scientists choosing the backdoor route for commercialization, by not assigning patents to their university to commercialize research, tend to rely on the commercialization mode of starting a new firm,” the researchers write. Researchers who chose the backdoor route to commercialization were more likely to have their work cited in subsequent patent applications, suggesting that “innovations with a potentially greater value are less likely to be commercialized through the technology transfer office.”

Several factors may influence scientists to bypass TTOs, according to Audretsch and Aldridge. Across the board, for example, inventions may call for different approaches than discoveries. In addition, some TTOs are more effective and better staffed than others, while different universities — and various academic departments within a given university — have different cultures with respect to the disclosure of IP. The study concludes that TTOs record only “the tip of the iceberg” of commercialization and suggests that policymakers examine the full scope of scientists’ activity to understand the entrepreneurial success of government-funded research.

Source:  Indiana University

Posted June 23rd, 2010 under Tech Transfer

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