A new report from the Milken Institute titled, “Mind to Market: A Global Analysis of University Biotechnology Transfer and Commercialization,” examines the process of university technology transfer. The process began three decades ago when researchers @ UCSF and Stanford began to develop commercial applications for their research into DNA (the birth of the biotech industry).
While the summary table on p.9 of the Milken report (login in required) shows that the US has 8 of the top 10 universities, foreign universities are doing really well with University of Tokyo (#2), University of London (#3), and Osaka, Kyoto, Cambridge, and Oxford in the top 20 (ahead of MIT and University of Michigan among others).
My sense is the tables were turn dramatically in the next decade. For the first time, one can see the levelling of technological capabilities in a sector, industry, economy-defining field.
This, more than anything else I can think of, shows the improvement of universities outside the US at the scientific frontier.
My hunch is that these data still do NOT capture the significant “damage” that has been done as a result of recent immigration, research, science policies in US, and increased recruitment abroad.
(posted by Richard)
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:47 am
Is this data unique to biotechnology? Or are there similar findings for other university research fields that spin off innovative private firms? (Maybe engineering, computer science, or physics)?
It would be interesting to know how much the unique “religiosity” in the United States is playing a role in discouraging science and scientists. If the same flight is happening in all fields, then it’s more than that. But if it’s just biotechnology (including stem cell related research) this would suggest it may be religion-based science policy that is the inhibiting factor behind biotechnology in US universities beginning to lag that field elsewhere.
If that’s the case, maybe biotechnology is a cluster that won’t thrive in the US — perhaps best to let it go (just like any uncompetitive industry) and focus on other fields.