Innovation Science

Responses to "How to Succeed with Industry-Sponsored University Research"

Sonicboom posted some great comments and questions in the Comment section of my recent post about industry-university collaboration. Because I have a lot to say in response, I’m posting my thoughts here rather than in the Comments section so that RSS subscribers don’t miss the discussion. You can read Sonicboom’s complete comment here.

Sonicboom asks:

What would you estimate is the percent of industry-sponsored research being performed at top-tier research universities?

The NSF reports that in 2004 $27.4 billion in university research was funded by the federal government while $2.1 billion was funded by industry. In the ‘02–’03 fiscal year, $30 million in industry funds were directed to University of California (UC) research projects through the UC Discovery Grant program, representing a fraction of the total industry-sponsored research funds that the UC system received that year.

The benefit flows both ways. University research has had a big impact on the biotech industry, for example. One-third of the public biotech companies in California were founded by UC faculty, including Amgen and Genentech. From 1996–2000, there were 172 UC research projects sponsored by the biotech industry alone, and the number of sponsored projects per year has certainly increased since then.

In your opinion, how efficient is the marketplace for turning ideas in university labs into marketable ideas? While you point out this is not the goal of university research, it is becoming a focus within most research universities with the proliferation of "technology offices" and incubators.

Transferring university research discoveries to the public domain so that the general public benefits from the results is not an efficient process in universities. The whole university research process has evolved such that research advances knowledge of a field and the results are disseminated through publications. There has been little focus on applying that knowledge or transferring it to industry in ways that benefit the general population.

Much of the engineering and scientific research at universities is motivated and directed towards real-world problems, but not all of it actually becomes used in a way consistent with that justification. For example, many of the speech, hearing and audio signal processing research grant proposals motivate their proposed research by saying that the results will help produce better hearing aids for the millions of hearing impaired people in the US. The reality is, though, that little of this research has had an impact on that industry.

The National Institute for Health is promoting a Translational Research initiative to attempt to transfer basic scientific results into the clinic where patients can experience benefit from the research. The NIH has motivated this by noting that the general public is funding the research through their taxes so they should benefit from this investment. Industry-relations and tech transfer offices at universities have some of the same motivations, in addition to seeking ways of generating revenue and research dollars outside of traditional avenues. As I pointed out in a previous post, however, there are several stumbling blocks to transferring university research to industry. They include:

1. a lack of knowledge by university researchers about industry state-of-the-art and technology needs necessary to refine the research in a way that optimizes its potential for application;
2. an attitude that applied research is distasteful and that working towards solutions for the general public is a violation of the ideals of scientific research (Going to the Dark Side is a term often used for university researchers who start to work with industry or for those who leave academia for a job in industry);
3. the need to openly publish research results that is often at odds with the competitive goals of a company;
4. the absence of someone who can find the sweet-spot in collaborative research who can define a project that will meet the needs of both the university and sponsoring company. This person would need to both understand the specialized university research and determine how the research could by applied to a product given the current state-of-the-art and the needs of the customer. This is a difficult task.

I hear bureaucrats drone on rather than creative, business-minded folks looking for ways to match the wonderful ideas they have in their labs with the companies that can turn those ideas into useful products.

As I just mentioned, matching university research to products is a great challenge. There are certainly many creative people at universities who could to do this, but they need a new type of training that typically doesn’t exist in universities except at places like Stanford, which has several programs for applying research to product development. The business people at universities facilitate the collaboration, but the definition of the collaboration requires specialized knowledge and exploratory work.

Additionally, research by Di Gregorio and Shane at the University of Maryland suggests that intellectual excellence and university policies are the most significant factors contributing to the creation of startups from university research, possibly accounting for differences across universities in startup activity. In 1997, for example, Stanford produced 25 new startups while Duke produced none, even though they both received from $300–400 million in sponsored research funding.

technology offices at universities…want to turn their  professors into entrepreneurs…This seems to conflict with the university’s primary goal of teaching…(and) to pursue their research interests.

Right, most professors aren’t interested in this type of work. A few universities like Stanford and MIT have successfully developed entrepreneurial programs over decades where the commercialization of research is accepted by faculty, and those universities now attract researchers who are looking to participate in this challenge. I believe developing such a system is not easy and requires a change in the mindset of the faculty and administration as well as the-development of appropriate policies and programs.

At it's core, the commercialization of university research seems like a search or matchmaker problem…This "search" problem, which I like to call it, seems to present an enormous business opportunity for those who can create the right model for commercialization.

I think you’re right. This relates to my point #4 above about identifying the sweet spot. There is an opportunity to be the bridge between universities and industry for those interested in doing the work to connect research with industry. The challenge is having the expert knowledge to assess difficult-to-understand research and envisioning the commercial opportunity which requires expert knowledge of the industry.

How to Succeed with Industry-Sponsored University Research

Companies often fund university researchers to advance new ideas in their field, and university professors often seek funding from companies who create products that are related to their research. A while ago I posted some advice on how to facilitate research collaborations between academia and industry. I promised to provide more information, so here it is.

Listed below are issues that the university researcher and industry sponsor need to address early in the discussion process. Often, both sides are unaware that these can be potentially contentious issues until well into the work and the issue is staring at them in the face, at which point the relationship can start to strain. Answer the following questions up front, and the collaboration or sponsorship will go much smoother.

1. Why is the company interested in sponsoring this research?
Different companies have different motivations for funding university research. Some simply want an association with a nearby university or a leader in their field for PR purposes. This looks good to their customers, and having the researcher mention the company as a sponsor at talks and in publications can enhance the company’s image. If this is the case, then there will be little pressure from the company to provide details on progress and few inquiries from the company’s researchers about the work.

If, however, the company is funding the research because they hope that the outcome will be useful for the company’s own research (a more likely case), then company researchers may want to meet with the university researchers at various points to discuss protocols, time-lines, preliminary results, etc. The company is paying for the research, so of course they are eager to know the details about the work and the results. This can be annoying to the university researcher in part because industry and academia operate on different time scales. What appears to the company to be infrequent requests for updates will appear to the university researcher to be constant hounding.

2. What are the expectations and deliverables?
This relates to the previous question, but is more specific. What does the sponsoring company expect in the way of updates? Do they expect to be able to send their scientists to the university lab every month to talk about the project, or are quarterly updates by e-mail sufficient? Do they expect a written report at the end of the project with all of the data, or do they want all of the software code and detailed protocols so that they can replicate the results at the company labs? Discussing this up front will avoid frustrations later on.

3. What are both sides’ rights to publish and present?
Companies survive because they obtain advantages over their competition. Many of their advantages are proprietary and companies protect those advantages by either patenting them or keeping them secret. Unless the company is only looking for good PR from the project (see point #1), the business executives in a company would rather keep secret any useful results from the sponsored project for as long as possible.

This, of course, conflicts with the university researcher’s goal of publishing and presenting the research that they conduct. This ability is fundamental to the researcher’s job and should be undeniable by the company. The happy medium is to allow the company to file for patent protection on any inventions that arise from the project before the invention is made public in a presentation or submitted manuscript. This is typically achieved by providing the sponsoring company with copies of what will be presented or submitted for publication at least one month in advance to allow the company to review what will be publicly disclosed and to file a patent application if necessary.

On the other side, the company may want to publish and present the results of the research at meetings that are important to their business. They may or may not want the university researcher to participate in these presentations. Again, expectations should be discussed so that both sides are aware of each other’s goals.

4. Is the sponsor agreeable to the university’s Intellectual Property policy?
There is the possibility that a patentable invention will result from the sponsored research. These days, every American university has formalized their own policy on ownership rights of any inventions, with details on what the rights of the sponsoring company are to the invention. Areas include rights to use, produce and commercialize, exclusive and non-exclusive. Also to be considered are rights when the only inventors are university employees or when there is shared inventorship between university employees and company employees. Be aware of the policy and make sure everyone is comfortable with it before beginning work.

Often, companies only sponsor research that they believe will not produce any inventions in order to avoid any costly licensing fees. Corporate executives will also often bristle at University IP policies. I’ve known some companies that have pulled the plug on sponsored research after significant work had been done to set up the project because corporate lawyers did not like the IP policy, and other companies that have selected which university to work with largely based on which university had the loosest IP policy.

In my opinion, these are over-reactions. Companies incorrectly think that universities will be as cut-throat in negotiations as their competitors, and that the university will become a threat to the sponsoring company if all the IP isn’t tied up with the sponsoring company from the start. Universities are in the business of teaching and training students and conducting reputable research, not generating massive revenue from licensing technology. Yes, they do want a return from their employees inventions, but no, they are not going to pursue monetization of the invention in the same way that IBM or Intellectual Ventures would.

5. Will the research be conducted by the professor, a post-doc, or graduate student?
Research at university labs is usually not conducted by the professor who directs the lab but by students working with the professor. The students are there to learn and be trained.

Whereas industry researchers have significant experience and are efficient in making decisions and finding the right approach, student researchers will spend a certain amount of time exploring new ideas and learning new concepts. They will take considerably longer than a dedicated industry researcher because they are learning and being trained. If the professor will actively participate in the project, however, then progress will likely be faster.

Post-docs will also work faster because they have more experience. Presumably, the post-doc is not as focused on learning as a graduate student is and they are focused more on progress and producing publications. So, the sponsoring company should know who will be doing the primary research so that they will understand the speed with which it will progress and set their expectations accordingly.

6. Is the university researcher a collaborator or contractor?
Is the expectation by the sponsoring company that they are simply writing a check and that all work will be done by the university researcher, or does the sponsoring company want to be an active participate? If they want to participate, then at what level: helping to develop protocols, replicating research in their labs, providing equipment, data interpretation?

The approach that I try to take at my research center is to be a collaborator with the university researcher. For me, this ensures that the research has the greatest likelihood of being useful for my company’s needs, and eases the transfer of technology from the university lab to my lab. In the absence of participation, the likelihood exists that any results from the university lab will just sit on a shelf, waiting for someone to read the report.

7. Are there opportunities to enhance the funding?
Sometimes there are programs available that add funding dollars to sponsored projects. The University of California has a mechanism called the UC Discovery Grant that doubles sponsorship funding through a grant submission process: if approved, the state of California matches the funds of the sponsoring company. Money is always tight, and it’s worth investigating whether the university or state has funding mechanisms that can be used to enhance the sponsor’s funds.

How to Create an Industry-Academia Mashup

I was invited as a speaker and advisor to a summit at Purdue University two weeks ago. The meeting was created to discuss how cross-department acoustics researchers at the university can collaborate on new ideas, create a new interdisciplinary research center, and develop corporate partnerships. I was the industry-researcher representative, and I spent a considerable amount of time talking about how the different departments can collaborate under a single research concept.

What I didn’t get a chance to talk about was what university researchers need to understand to better collaborate with industry sponsors. So, over a series of posts I will discuss a few ideas on this topic.

Academia is increasingly turning to companies for research funding as federal funds become harder to get. The University of California has developed a matching-fund program that generates $50 million in corporate-sponsored research each year. In this post, I’ll discuss some of the issues that a university researcher must deal with in order to have a successful partnership with industry.

1. General Relativity
Time moves at a different pace on a university campus than on a corporate park: academia seemingly travels near the speed of light because what seems like a short duration to them can seem like a lifetime to industry. The university research process allows researchers to contemplate problems deeply and discover patterns of thought that had been previously undiscovered. A couple of months is nearly a blink of an eye to a university research program.

Time literally is money in industry, however, and a week lost in contemplative thought is a week lost in revenue. When R&D departments solve problems, they are not searching for the ultimate truth but for the best approach that can be developed given their time and resource constraints, knowing that there’s always time for improvements later. University researchers are driven by “Why and how?”; R&D engineers are driven by “Make it work.” Both sides of an industry-university partnership need to be aware of the relativity of their perspectives on the passage of time. Otherwise, “frequent updates” by university researchers might be viewed as abusive negligence by the company.

2. Training Day
Part of a university’s function is to educate students, both in classrooms and in laboratories. Research labs consist of students and post-docs doing most of the heavy lifting so that they can learn the research disciplines of their own field and become experts on their topic of investigation. This, of course, means that those doing industry-sponsored research are spending a lot of time simply learning their craft. Which takes time. Which means you need to consider point #1. Post-docs, though, usually are already experts in their field and are more effective time-wise: less time spent learning, quicker at conducting the research. Corporate sponsors need to understand who will be doing the sponsored research—graduate students or post-docs—and what that means for expected time-lines.

3. Publish or Perish
A researcher in academia is judged by their list of publications. Companies typically want to keep new ideas proprietary to obtain a competitive edge. You can see the potential for conflict. University researchers will want to, and should be able to, publish the research that is being funded—otherwise they won’t maintain their grants and possibly their positions. This issue should be addressed up front and guidelines provided to allow companies to apply for a patent before any inventions are revealed in publications or presentations. If a company doesn’t want anything published, they shouldn’t fund university research.

4. Know Your Client
University researchers focus on proving hypotheses and developing new theories—they typically don’t know much about the practical aspects of a potential corporate sponsor’s applications or their customers. Why should they care? Well, this presents a problem when looking for a common bond between industry and academia to justify a partnership. If you don’t know anything about dancing, don’t expect to be asked onto the dance floor too often.

The National Institute of Health is currently trying to promote a Translational Research initiative, defined as bringing results from the lone researcher into the clinic and to the patient, i.e., provide an application to basic research. This involves clinicians collaborating with basic scientists and each understanding the other’s world. A similar level of understanding is necessary between the academic researcher and the corporate sponsor. If the researcher doesn’t understand the application, their research is less likely to be of value to the sponsor because of the unlikeliness of it translating successfully.

Industry-types are often suspicious of the usefulness of academia to their business, and university researchers need to propose ideas that demonstrate an understanding of the issues facing the sponsor’s industry. University researchers looking to create partnerships with companies need to spend some time understanding problems that companies have with their technology and their customers’ needs—find the areas of opportunity where university research overlaps with industry need. This produces the highest likelihood of a company being interested in sponsoring research and and of that research ultimately being useful to the sponsor.

5. Ownership
The area of intellectual property is such a quagmire these days and such an important part of university-industry relations that I think I’ll give this topic its own post some time soon. Sorry.