University-Business Linkages

Introduction
    The last twenty years have seen an enormous increase in the linkages between university researchers and private industry in the United States, and academics in economic development and related fields have not failed to produce published output on the subject. This Web site will provide a bibliographic resource guide to books and articles examining efforts to get technology and ideas out of university research labs, and into the business world in the form of commercially viable products or services.  Links will also be provided to a number of the major research universities in the United States.  Note: This site does not primarily focus on the more traditional linkages that fall under the rubric of either "business extension" programs or "agricultural extension" programs.  Furthermore, the phrase "technology transfer" is used often here, but only in reference to transfers of technology out of universities -- the subject of technology transfer is actually much broader than that. 

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Site Map
    The first three of the following four sections contain bibliographic references as well as a brief overview of the pertinent subject. You will find some references in more than one section, an indication of a book or article of some breadth.  All of this site's Web links are assembled in the final section, to speed along the surfers amongst us.

Historical Context -- with 'history' here meaning right up to the present.  Most of the works mentioned here are not primarily historical, but rather have a good contextual introduction to a broader article or book.
      Efforts to persuade institutions of higher education to assist private interests predate the Civil War, resulting first in the Morrill Act of 1862, which established the land grant system, and fifty years later the Smith-Levering Act, which created cooperative agricultural extension programs.  These agricultural extension services are still going strong today in many universities.  However, the Second World War marked an enormous shift in the priorities of research universities, with many new external linkages formed with the federal government in the form of weapons research.  Military research within academe continued its predominance over linkages to private businesses during the early Cold War. During the 'first wave' of post-war economic development literature, some writers began considering universities' economic impact, but usually by examining the value of education itself, or the university as an institution. For a good example of how one 1960s writer explained universities' contributes to human capital formation, see:

Becker, Gary S. 1964. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education. New York: Columbia University Press.
Others in the same era calculated the social rate of return on investment; for examples, see: In any event, economic development researchers were accepting universities primarily as centers of learning rather than as the birthplaces of new products. A few writers attempted to measure a university's direct effect on a local economy through property tax revenues foregone and spending by students and employees; one example is: Defining the size of the relevant economy is critical in these studies: as larger economic units are considered, research universities look better in terms of both human capital and social rates of return.  These older views of a university's economic impact are still valid despite the more recent shift in expectations, and researchers continue to estimate economic impacts within these frameworks; see, for example:     Although the early post-war years saw heavy university ties to military research, it was in this era that some of the first high technology private spin-off companies were founded by former university researchers. The emergence of Hewlitt-Packard from a Stanford lab is by far the most famous example, and is often posited as the birth of Silicon Valley. Indeed, this case is the most often cited example in articles on the subject of university-business linkages, and is usually portrayed as a shining success story.  For a somewhat contrarian historical view of both Silicon Valley and Route 128 in Boston, read: Saxenian argues that the early post-war military research being conducted in those regions was as important as the universities, and also asserts that the events giving rise to Silicon Valley and Route 128 will not likely repeat themselves.

    The major rise in university linkages to private industry, especially in high technology, started in the late 1970s, and has accelerated ever since.  A variety of trends forced American research universities to rethink their priorities.  First, universities struggled during the 1980s to maintain federal research funding, and the situation only worsened with the sharp drop in military research in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Universities therefore needed to develop new sources of research funding, and the private sector was the most obvious potential place to look.  Second, with the rising challenge of Japanese industry in the 1970s and the concurrent American industrial slump, more politicians demanded an increase in the direct economic payback from major universities.  And since the American economy has been shifting away from heavy industrial activity towards an information based technological economy, and since universities have long been the repositories of information, as well as the generators of new knowledge, they are increasingly viewed as potential economic engines both by politicians hoping to spur economic growth, as well as by business interests desperate for the informational inputs needed to compete in the new economy.  The following works provide good insight into these complex forces working on universities today:

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Strategies / Assessments
    Universities use a variety of specific strategies used to help forge linkages between their researchers and the business world. These include the spin-off of new companies started either by researchers or by businesses licensing their ideas, patent holding plans for individual researchers as well as universities, the formation of ongoing R&D consortia, the construction and operation of research parks and business incubators, efforts to spur entrepreneurial activity among faculty, and business assistance for university researchers setting up shop. There is virtual unanimity amongst writers that these strategies in various combinations hold great potential for helping an economy expand.  Most often, a multitude of overlapping strategies are discussed in an integrated fashion, with the unifying concept being technology transfer, the process whereby new information is transferred out of the ivory tower and converted into profitable enterprise.  For good overviews and assessments of these strategies, see:

For overviews that also describe how universities have shifted from passive to proactive stances, see: Another common underlying theme of strategy assessments is geographical proximity, and its importance to the success or failure of university-business linkages; for examples, see:  
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Issues
    The works cited in the strategies / assessments section were all written by economic development researchers, none of whom can avoid grappling with one overarching theme: the conflicting reward and incentive structures of academia and the business world.  In short, university researchers seek tenure through the broadest possible publication of new knowledge in collegial forums, while businesses seek competitive advantage through the development of proprietary knowledge.  Works written from within the economic development paradigm most commonly note in passing the existence of an ethical concern, acknowledge that there is a lively debate on the ethics front, and then move on to posit this conflict as a managerial challenge.
But serious questions arise when university researchers are being paid from public funds, while using their time to develop business ventures for profit.  And this issue is no longer confined to individuals, as entire universities seek to cash in on the profits generated by their researchers.  In reality, the opposition is much more intentional and intense than just a matter of differing reward structures. The following works address the many punishments that await professors at some academic institutions should they venture into any arrangements with profit-seeking partners, and describe the lengths some universities have had to go to overcome this internal hostility from some corners of the faculty.

For a truly critical view of these ethical conflicts, one must turn to observers writing from outside the field of economic development.  For an opinion offered by an academic science researcher, see: Some industry representatives also express concerns about the risks of shifting resources away from undergraduate education; see: Furthermore, the education of undergraduates is also an economic development function; slighting education in the name of technology transfer schemes may backfire in the long run, if the corporate beneficiaries of the new technology take it elsewhere in search of a better educated workforce; for an exposition of this view, see: Back to Site Map

Links
    Universities -- The following annotated links are to selected research universities -- apologies to visitors whose alma maters were slighted.  For an exhaustive list of university Web pages devoted to this subject (including international listings), go to University Technology Offices.    The links take you directly to the most pertinent page within that university's Web site -- some of these pages are deeply hidden in a university's Web site, others very prominent.  You can get some general feel for who's hot and who's not by comparing a number of mission statements.  The ordering of priorities is revealing, and sometimes the enthusiasm -- or lack of it -- is obvious.

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