The Innovation Equation

University research is a vital building block of the nation's R&D enterprise. While universities perform 14 percent of total national R&D, they perform 54 percent of the nation's basic research. Along with creating new knowledge and the foundation for new products and processes, U.S. universities use their research activities to educate students who will become the next generation's scientists, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. Because there is broad consensus that university research is a long-term, national investment in the future, the federal government supports 62 percent of the research performed at universities.

Technology Transfer is the means by which research findings are transferred to the private sector for potential development into products and processes. Products developed from university technology transfer include the gene splicing technology that initiated the biotechnology industry, new Internet search engines, and improved building materials.

Since the 1980 enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act, the federal government has allowed universities and other nonprofit organizations to patent and retain title to inventions created from research funded by the government. Universities, in turn, must:

• license the rights to innovations to industry;
• use any remaining income, minus the costs of technology management expenses, for scientific research or education;
• share any future income from the patent with the inventor; and
• provide the federal government a nonexclusive, irrevocable license to the invention.