WASHINGTON — In the quest for American innovation, especially during a time of deep national recession, some experts say universities are the problem. That’s because not enough academic ideas find their way to the marketplace.
Three well-known members of the science and research community say technology coming out of university laboratories can positively impact the marketplace beyond campuses and college hallways, but it’s not always poised to do that now.
Throughout the academic community, they say, the process of transferring ideas to reality needs drastic improvement.
“The problem is at the university level,” said Robert Litan, vice president for Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. “Ideas are not created with a commercial purpose initially. Universities have become bottlenecks.”
The Kauffman Foundation, based in Kansas City, Mo., aims to speed up the process of making innovative ideas a reality.
The problem is not a lack of potential, said Gerard Eldering, founder and president of InnovateTech Ventures, but creating a smoother transfer of technology to the marketplace.
“We need to identify those [ideas] that have startup potential. There is lots of potential at much smaller universities,” said Eldering, emphasizing the need to identify and incubate innovate ideas beyond the big schools.
“The technology that emerges from the laboratory is a small fraction of what it should look like,” said Asher Epstein, managing director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland.
He said the problem at many universities is that lab “solutions” are often made without considering whether there is a market “problem” that needs to be solved — and that’s a problem for getting good ideas into the greater conversation about innovation.
“There is an opportunity to take research to marketplace,” Epstein said, “but [now]; research is done for sake of research at universities.”
The key to using innovation to elevate the economy and improve the marketplace will involve the cooperation of government, business, and academic communities.
“Twenty years ago, entrepreneurship was not taught,” Litan said. “We need to bring entrepreneurship out of business schools only and into non-business areas. Some of their ideas could be the next Google.”
The academic community plays a vital role in research and development efforts – a part of President Barack Obama’s strategy for American innovation.
More than $100 billion in Recovery Act funds support innovation. The president has said his administration is committed to fostering new jobs, new businesses, and new industries by laying the groundwork and the ground rules to best tap the innovative potential of corporations large and small across the nation.
Researchers agree that part of the way the United States can maintain its position as a worldwide leader in innovation and ensure the future health of the economy is to encourage the academic community to expand its borders.