University of Montana & Montana State University Tech Transfer

With millions of dollars of research funding and teams of experts at their disposal, more universities are seeking ways to turn research breakthroughs into business opportunities.

Federal agencies pour billions each year into university research, largely through grants that allow student researchers to pay their bills as they work. With less federal money to spend, some Ph.D. programs are delaying admissions decisions, while others have already cut positions amid the uncertainty.

The University of Montana will celebrate research and creative scholarship with a week of activities that include:

Companies that consider partnering with Iowa’s larger universities on research projects received more incentive to do so Thursday.

Funded by a Small Business Innovation and Research grant from the National Science Foundation, Mark Kozubal and his start-up company, Sustainable Bioproducts, will conduct further research, as well as enlist the consulting needed to study the product’s fit within the marketplace.

Why not let the consumer and investment community take a greater role?

By streamlining the process of executing licensing agreements and being flexible about how those agreements are written, Technology Enterprises has been able to dramatically increase the number of ASU technologies being developed into products by the private sector.

Universities are one of the few organizations out there who have deep pockets but are not profit driven, are not held to a firm bottom line, nor made accountable for return on investment (how many "former VCs" do you bump into these days at conferences?). Warts and all, as startups must compete with other startups in a big patent arms race, universities continue to foot the bill to pay patent costs for startups that will likely never be able to pay them back.

Operating costs are increasing, endowments are shrinking, and the fiscal health of Universities, both public and private, is becoming increasingly strained.

Examples of the type of information gathered include the number of patents, the number of invention disclosures, the number of startups created and the amount of licensing income received.