Abstract
In recent years, in addition to the basic tenets of teaching and research, commercialization and innovation have become core priorities in higher education (Friedman & Silberman, 2003; Etzkowitz, 2003; Rasmussen et al., 2006). Universities have the right ingredients to be natural technology transfer incubators with a high influx of innovators and the capability to create new ventures and have high potential to generate a high level of economic development. Commercialization allows the results of innovative research to be utilized through transformation into marketable products or ‘technology transfer’. Since the 1980s, Canadian universities have begun dedicating resources and effort to discover how to best harness the innovation arising out of university-based research for knowledge transfer and revenue generation through commercialization. This thesis focuses on specific university inputs that influence the volume of technology transferred to industry through various commercialization channels and the impact each factor may have considering the institution size. Through data verified primarily from the Association of University Technology Managers’ (AUTM) annual surveys of Canadian and American universities from 2011 to 2015, this study analyzes the effect of administrative characteristics on technology transfer at a university. While the results of the study do not provide much conclusive guidance on the reasons behind growth in university-industry technology transfer, they do suggest that there is some greater effect in large universities that leads to more technology transfer activity than in smaller universities.
Highlights
This thesis study seeks to identify the ability of a university to gain influence over the volume of academic innovation commercialized and answer the question of ‘what university characteristics impact the amount of commercialization activity generated'? University-Industry Technology Transfer (UITT) is the key measure of commercialization used in this study of academic innovation in a Canadian context
The results of the study do not provide much conclusive guidance on the reasons for UITT growth beyond the size of the university, but they do suggest that there is some greater effect of U15 universities that leads to more UITT activity than smaller universities
The patent application data available for this study only included applications issued in consultation with the Technology Transfer Offices (TTO), the survey results do not include those patents applied for independently, but that were still developed through academic research
Summary
Introduction and Research overviewIn recent years, in addition to the basic tenets of teaching and research, commercialization and innovation has become a core priority in higher education (Friedman & Silberman, 2003; Etzkowitz, 2003; Rasmussen et al, 2006). Universities have the right ingredients to be natural technology transfer incubators with a high influx of innovators and the capability to create new ventures and have high potential to generate a high level of economic development. Since the 1980s, Canadian universities have dedicated resources and effort to best harness the innovation arising out of university-based research for knowledge transfer and revenue generation through commercialization. This thesis study seeks to identify the ability of a university to gain influence over the volume of academic innovation commercialized and answer the question of ‘what university characteristics impact the amount of commercialization activity generated'? University-Industry Technology Transfer (UITT) is the key measure of commercialization used in this study of academic innovation in a Canadian context. This study explores the impact that size, measured as annual research revenue, has on the ability of a university to alter the amount of technology transferred. Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) to report on a large number of key variables through various annual surveys that serve as the core of the data set for this study
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