University technology transfer system criticized

In an opinion article published in the Washington Post, Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at Duke University’s Center for Entrepreneurship, decried the current relationship between universities and research centers, industry, and markets, stating “the university commercialization system is broken…If university research [were] a business, it would be bankrupt.”

There is danger in equating commercialization with technology transfer, in eliminating public good from the equation, and Wadhwa seems to agree, “it is not fair to judge the success of university research by the licensing revenue produced,” yet the basis of the article is the vast difference between investment and commercial returns.

IPBlog feels the technology universities’ transfer offices’ move toward developing start-up incubators is acknowledgment that more has to be done and is being done under their auspices. BVR offers a comprehensive directory of these university start-ups.