Taking Care of Business, by W. Cohen, PRISM, ASEE, January 2000, pp. 18-21.

Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 6/23/00

"… Once staffed by sleepy patent lawyers, today's schools have created burgeoning business centers filled with experts in intellectual property and corporate deal-making. These officials recruit venture capitalists, write business plans, and take equity in start-up companies. Some even occupy seats on the boards of newly spawned firms. The goal is to provide corporate America with the fruits of academic research, to further augment U.S. economic competitiveness, and to improve the university's bottom line."

"According to the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), faculty members reported 11,784 new discoveries from research in fiscal year 1998, an increase of 59 percent since the organization began keeping track in 1991. As a result, university applications for new patents have jumped 147 percent. More than 13,000 patents have been issued to universities during the past six years. … Research universities earned $725 million on the royalties and other income derived from the patents, up 19 percent from 1997. …"

"But not everyone on campus is convinced that this is a business schools should be in. Critics say that universities' quest for dollars - and their partnership with the private sector - runs the risk of harming the basic academic mission, which is to teach and conduct research. And with universities keen on obtaining a financial stake in discoveries made on campus, institutional goals are sometimes pitted against the interests of faculty and student entrepreneurs seeking a cut of technology they invented. …"

"… As technology licensing proliferates, some students and professors claim that universities pursue their own profits at the expense of the faculty and student inventors. Although the mission statement of most technology transfer offices state that they strive to commercialize technology, retain faculty, and promote economic growth ahead of generating income, there are those who believe that the goals clash. … If campus inventors think that their university is going to be greedy or indifferent, they may choose to hide their discoveries until they can start their own companies. To make matters worse, numerous reports have identified businesses that demand that university professors resist publishing their research findings until well after a patent has been filed, which can harm a professor's career and inhibit fund-raising for other projects."

"Perhaps the real danger in all of this is the possibility that teaching will suffer as the pressure for profits increases. … As the economic lucre increases, it remains to be seen whether the deepening relationship between campus and corporations will be good for higher education."

[Readers who are interested in this paper are encouraged to read the original version in its entirety. Other summary notes on faculty reward systems are available on the Internet at http://lohman.tamu.edu under the heading "Summaries of Papers ..."]

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