Most universities have a knowledge or technology transfer office to help commercialize the university's Intellectual Property (IP). Knowledge transfer offices manage IP, Patents, Licensing and more recently, the creation of spin-off companies. The offices help to decide what IP is worth patenting, drive licensing and promote commercialization if IP.
The average percentage of patents licensed across universities sit under 10% - At best. That means that in portfolios of thousands of patents, the majority of ideas and IP sits underutilized while blocking anyone else from pursuing it commercially. The opportunity cost of it is gigantic both financially and impact wise.
Many universities still focus on basic research and treat commercialization as an unforgivable sin. Utilizing public funds to make money can be still be perceived as a conflict of interest in many public institutions, even if it can generate more funding for more research. To make things more complicated, many countries allow researchers and professors to spin-out companies and benefit from millions of dollars worth of government funded research. These factors lead to a complex environment where universities and government investments miss out on revenue generated by the fruits of research.
Commercializing research can have a tremendous impact on research sustainability. Proceedings from successful discoveries can subsidize dozens of new discoveries that can in turn generate more revenue. Public funded research generally enables universities to keep all proceeds from commercialization, enabling additional revenue that can be directed at more research.
The proceedings from research can not only increase funding for further research, it can increase industry engagement and provide real world impact. New discoveries and technologies can create new industries, improve lives, and drive economic growth.
So how can universities better commercialize their research? - By leveraging Technology Venture Builders like Outroll. Outroll helps organizations to spin-out new ideas and technologies, covering everything from creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Technology Venture Builders enable universities to focus on their core mission, without conflicts of interest between research staff and commercialization. Venture Builders are also better prepared to launch, manage, and grow technology spin-outs.
Spin-outs provide a fantastic way to capture value and push new technologies to marker. Spin-outs unlock opportunities that licensing alone would miss, and create larger opportunities for universities to commercialize their research.
