Talking about innovation with senior research officers

Last week Physics Today‘s David Kramer and I attended a roundtable that was sponsored by the Science Coalition and the Association of American Universities . Sitting around a large table (a square one, as it happened) were the roundtable participants: journalists like David and me and the senior research officers of eight US universities.

The SROs were in Washington, DC, for a series of meetings with their colleagues and their congressional representatives. The roundtable, the first of its kind for the two sponsors, was an experiment. I hope they repeat it. But when I received the invitation, I was skeptical that I’d hear much beyond the frequently made case that the federal government should increase its funding of university research.

Instead, the SROs talked mostly about how universities can play a stronger, more effective role in America’s economic future. Universities have long served as major employers and originators of potentially lucrative ideas. Those activities remain economically important, but now universities are increasingly seeing themselves as centers of innovation and entrepreneurship.

By “innovation and entrepreneurship,” the SROs meant a new, broader approach to working with industry. Under the technology transfer model, a discovery made by a university researcher usually requires the help of either a spin-out company or an industrial partner to evolve into a patentable, profitable product.

That model is still being followed, but it’s being complemented by others. For example, the University of Virginia holds an annual Venture Summit , where venture capitalists and other investors can learn about UVa’s cutting-edge research and offer advice, funding, or both to researchers—even before they might need it.

Innovation and entrepreneurship extend to student training too. Industrial companies that want to develop their human capital are keener than ever to host undergraduate and graduate students. The University of Arizona is among several universities that are meeting that need through industrial placement programs.

Regional partnerships are also burgeoning. Brown University and the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp University have recently founded the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship . Five Boston-area universities—Boston University, Harvard University, MIT, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston—are collaborating to build a shared supercomputing center.

I left the roundtable encouraged about America’s future. The nation’s universities continue to produce innovative research. Now they are producing innovative ideas about how to exploit that research.