A cluster of news articles has been published recently about how the incoming president at the University of Washington will boost technology transfer.
Right off, this is rather odd. One would think that the lead articles about a new university president might address the budget crisis in education, or the growing emphasis on out of state students, or even the challenge in balancing the athletics program with academics.
The first piece was in GeekWire. It portrays the University of Utah as a company-producing powerhouse. Sounds good, if true. We will see it is, but only in a sense.
The second piece, in the Seattle Times, has roughly the same story, but with more local names and quotes. It is not about the incoming president, really. It is about how wonderful the University of Washington technology transfer office is on the occasion of the new president’s soon arrival. One might say that by “UW” is meant, apparently, the technology transfer office, since no faculty are quoted as looking forward to a company-forming boost from the new president as the number one agenda.
Meanwhile, back in Salt Lake City, the Tribune is painting a different picture. Many of the companies started by Utah apparently are shell companies with no operations, no funding, and with significant university ownership and control. An independent source here in Seattle looked at the 100 or so companies Utah counts as having started in the past five years, and only 3 appear to have received what could be called a round of financing. Faculty at Utah are not entirely happy, it appears. The director of the Utah program is moving on.
There are reasons to create shell companies as a way to move technology rights into a better position for development. Not a problem. That may be a worthwhile strategy. But there is a problem representing these to the public (or to state officials) as if they were all fully operational companies. That’s not good. It isn’t even true. It’s not just “spin” or “marketing”. It’s just an attempt to mislead folks.
It would appear that the immediate effect of the Utah companies is that they capture state resources that could otherwise go to support actual entrepreneurs. In other words, the effect of the University of Utah’s behavior is to take even more state funds, now funneled through company instruments. As a result, research discoveries are locked up, exclusively no doubt, in private, mostly moribund organizations. That’s also not good. It does not really look like economic development, though it is bragged about that way. It does not point to a vibrant entrepreneurial culture. It would appear to be something more like a company puppy mill. Is that what the University of Washington hopes to imitate? Is that what needs a “boost” from the incoming president?
One wonders if the state of Utah is getting the kind of benefit claimed for it by the University of Utah. One could equally wonder that about Washington. It is a thing worth of a serious wondering, even by an incoming university president.
If one is going to push “commercialization”, the primary metric is new product on the market, not paper companies, or even companies that get investment funding but burn it all off and never get to a product. It would be good to see universities report date of first commercial availability of research-based products if they claim to promote “commercialization”. For the public, and for state legislators, it does no good to have university administrators pushing stories in the press claiming an impact that does not hold up under scrutiny. We should expect better than that.