How Much Money are You Leaving on the Table?
The Many Benefits of Commercializing Academic Research
Much of the research that belongs to universities is not commercialized today. This may be due to the lack of financial support, a misunderstanding of how to commercialize research and what the value in it is, or the absence of collaboration between university and industry.
Commercialization helps universities extract monetary value from research while also bringing knowledge and discoveries to the broader outside world. There have been remarkable innovations and advances made in university research labs. However, without commercialization efforts, fewer people learn about these groundbreaking discoveries.
In a recent study by a Wharton professor David Hsu, it was found that while universities create significant value through licensing revenues and equity stakes in their research, the universities themselves only capture about 16% of this value. As the presence of industrial research labs is decreasing and academic research at universities is on the rise, academic research institutions are well positioned to capitalize on this macro trend.
Professor Hsu argues that universities who commercialize more of their patents and intellectual property will gain increased value from their work. In fact, he explains in one of his research papers that, “The technologies underlying many successful companies including Google’s PageRank search algorithm, EInk’s electronic paper, RSA’s cryptography algorithm, and Genentech’s recombinant growth hormone were discovered by scientists at universities who then commercialized via startups.” Without the commercialization of academic research, the technologies that contributed to the success of these companies may have never been known. Commercialization makes an impact by transforming knowledge into utility.
Commercializing your research also helps generate more revenue for your research lab. This money can then be channeled back into the research process to reinvest and rediscover. It creates benefits for your lab such as more access to funding opportunities, future investments, and increased prestige.
OpenScholar provides the infrastructure to support and encourage research visibility. Your research is a powerful asset that can attract talent, funding and partnerships.
Check out our lab lookbook to see how we can help you reach your goals.
When you use OpenScholar to show your work, share your work, and collaborate on research, magic happens: science advances, and outcomes are accelerated.
