As the University of Connecticut attempts to morph itself into a major player in the technology transfer field, the school has a ways to go before it competes with the big names.
In fiscal year 2010, which ended earlier this year, UConn spent $157.8 million on research and brought in $898,141 in license income, according to the annual U.S. Licensing Survey recently released by the Association of Technology Managers.
The numbers are an improvement from a year earlier, but don’t compare favorably with major players in the industry.
The University of California system, for example, which is the perennial powerhouse, spent $5.2 billion on research in fiscal 2010, and brought in $104 million from licensing.
The University of Michigan, which is a school with a pedigree UConn someday hopes to mirror, spent $1.1 billion on research and brought in nearly $40 million in license income. Meanwhile, Penn State University, another school UConn would like to compete with, spent $780.1 million on research and generated $2.3 million in license revenue.
Michael Newborg, the executive director of UConn’s Center for Science and Technology Commercialization, said the school is strong in many tech transfer categories when compared to peer universities like Oklahoma St., Dartmouth, and the universities of Virginia and Oklahoma, but UConn still has lots of room for improvement when it comes to licensing income.
One of the reasons UConn lags behind in that category, experts say, is because the school hasn’t had a big ticket spinoff company.
“With the exception of one category, we do exceptionally well,” Newborg said.
UConn’s tech transfer program has its roots in the 1980s but was completely remolded and revamped last decade, so it’s still a relative newcomer to the game.
Still, Newborg said UConn holds its own in several major tech transfer categories.
In 2010, for example, UConn reached a milestone with 91 invention disclosures, the most in the school’s history.
UConn had 32 patents issued in fiscal 2010, as well as 33 new patent applications. The school generated six new startup companies as well.
Nationwide, university and research licensing and startup activity remained strong in fiscal 2010 despite rough economic headwinds, according to the AUTM survey.
The number of new startups increased 11 percent and the number of license/option agreements signed with startups increased 14 percent. Meanwhile, total research and development spending increased 10 percent to $59 billion, while license income saw a 3 percent jump to $2 billion.
Universities have always been major sources of science and technology innovation, but there is increasing pressure to turn ideas into practical uses that create new businesses and jobs.
“Silicon Valley” and the “North Carolina Triangle” have become model examples. In Connecticut, Yale University and its Science Park is the benchmark.
In fiscal 2010, Yale spent spent $641 million on R&D, and raked in about $7 million in licensing income, the AUTM survey said, putting the New Haven school well ahead of UConn.
Yale also had 217 invention disclosures.
UConn has raised its profile over the last decade as a research institution. The school is still in the second phase of a $2.3 billion campus upgrade, which has led to the construction of modern buildings that have attracted researchers from around the world.
And just this year, the state earmarked another billion dollars or so to spur innovation and research. That includes a $170 million investment to build a technology park that will add up to 1.4 million square feet of research, technology and academic space on the North Campus in Storrs.
The state is also pouring $864 million into the UConn Health Center campus in Farmington to try to create a bioscience hub. Although the project has yet to break ground, it has generated significant buzz within the industry, and even helped lure genetics research institute Jackson Laboratory to want to build a $1.1 billion laboratory within the Health Center campus.
Newborg said those investments will have a tremendous impact on UConn’s ability to drive commercialization. It will not only bring more research talent to the state, but also give the school more ideas, technologies and innovations to work with.
The investment will also support an expansion in faculty, and, Newborg said, the list of researchers interested to coming to the UConn Health Center in response to Bioscience Connecticut is impressive.
In the next five years, Newborg said he wants to see UConn ramp up its research spending to over $200 million.
“I think the future of commercialization at UConn looks bright,” Newborg said. “These investments will help create an environment of entrepreneurship, which helps drive technology transfer activity.”
