DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
NATIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL ON INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
April 15, 2011
The Honorable Gary Locke
Secretary of Commerce
1401 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20230
Dear Secretary Locke:
As the leaders of America’s leading research universities, we are grateful for
the commitment demonstrated by this administration to the research conducted by
our students and faculty. At a time of significant budgetary challenges, we
appreciate this administration’s recognition of the continued need to invest in
research and education through its support of strong budgets for the National
Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of
Energy’s Office of Science, the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of
Standards and Technology, the Department of Defense Research and Engineering
Organizations, and other such agencies.
Fueled by federal funding and encouraged by enlightened federal policies such as
the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, America’s colleges and universities spur economic
growth and prepare the next generation of scientists, engineers and
entrepreneurs. Breakthroughs from university-based research have led to entirely
new industries in sectors such as information technology, biotechnology, clean
energy, and nanotechnology. Universities participate in regional innovation
clusters, partner with existing companies to commercialize federally-funded
research, nurture startups, attract and motivate commercialization talent, and
educate and train a world-class workforce.
Already engaged in many activities that promote innovation, entrepreneurship,
and the commercialization of research results, we are committed to working even
more closely with industry, private foundations, venture capitalists and local,
state and federal governments to enhance our efforts. These organizations, too,
have significant roles to play in improving the technology commercialization
processes, encouraging entrepreneurship, and instituting policies and programs
that support regional economic development.
In pursuit of these shared goals, many of our universities are actively building
campus-wide innovation ecosystems and expanding them into regional and national
networks. But as we move forward, we also will employ new strategies, enhance
existing activities, and expand our efforts in several areas.
2
Promoting Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Many campuses already offer courses aimed at teaching entrepreneurship, provide
new opportunities for experiential learning, run student business plan
competitions, support student clubs, and sponsor programs that put
multidisciplinary student teams to work solving real world challenges. To
promote student innovation and entrepreneurship further, we will:
·
Build upon and expand these activities.
·
Create new programs and grow existing activities on our campuses to encourage
undergraduates, graduate students, and post-doctoral students to pursue careers
as innovators and entrepreneurs.
·
Develop new cross-college, cross-disciplinary programs that connect business
with science, math, technology and engineering fields.
·
Extend these programs to reach young people in underserved and low-income areas
by involving community colleges in consortia for training and mentoring in
innovation and entrepreneurial activities.
Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship
Financial incentives, faculty industry sabbatical leaves, campus prizes and
other forms of recognition encourage faculty innovation and entrepreneurship. To
promote these ideals further, we will:
·
Expand efforts to encourage, recognize and reward faculty interest in research
commercialization by providing incentives and encouraging engagements with
industry, entrepreneurs and venture partners.
·
Create or expand programs that connect faculty and students to the resources
they need: industry partners, entrepreneurial mentors, translational research
and “proof-of-concept” funds, accelerator facilities and venture creation
services.
·
Encourage streamlining and reduction in reporting and compliance requirements,
which would allow faculty to increase time spent on proposal writing and
research.
·
We also call upon the federal government to refrain from enacting policies, such
as overly stringent regulations on conflict of interest, that discourage our
faculty from working with industry or developing innovative technologies.
Actively supporting the university technology transfer function
Moving an idea effectively across the “valley of death” requires critical
programs that include funding for proof of concept research and new mechanisms
within the existing grant process that help defray the costs and risks. To
actively support the university technology transfer function we will:
·
Work to further reduce barriers to technology transfer to accelerate the rate at
which ideas move from the lab to the marketplace. Central to this effort will be
to ensure that our technology transfer offices are adequately staffed with
skilled professionals who are provided with the resources to effectively and
efficiently perform their jobs.
·
Publicly promote the importance of technology transfer, to encourage
participation by our researchers and encourage engagements with potential
partners.
·
Establish policies to encourage technology transfer offices to strive to
maximize the societal and economic development benefits of discoveries, rather
than maximizing revenues.
We also encourage government and state governments, and business collaborators
to
·
Expand networking conferences and events to exchange best practices and attract
talent and resources for commercialization activities.
·
Assist in these efforts by subsidizing the costs of research commercialization.
·
Create a new SBIR program that could focus on commercialization with Phase 0
awards to be used by universities to engage in prototyping, funding mentoring
talent and supporting market-readiness initiatives.
·
Establish federal tax credits that could be provided to industry to encourage
businesses and venture partners to leverage university technologies and start-up
venture opportunities.
Facilitating University-Industry Collaboration
To increase the presence of industries on campus, many of our institutions have
established a "front door" or portals to enhance access to research expertise,
intellectual property, and commercial opportunities. To facilitate
university-industry collaboration, we will:
·
Further support programs that facilitate sharing of labs, facilities,
student-faculty teams, and other resources.
·
Strengthen strategic investments in university-industry collaborations aimed at
advancing technologies of mutual interest and renowned research programs,
designed to enhance market-pull of research.
·
Develop ways to incentivize and support industry R&D professionals to
collaborate with universities.
·
Encourage the development of accelerators and public-private partnerships on or
within close proximity to campuses; and find ways to provide innovation services
to new enterprises external to the university.
We also call on federal agencies to assist by:
·
Building entrepreneurship and innovation components into agency grants;
·
Creating opportunities within federal agencies for high-risk innovative
research;
·
Allowing, as appropriate, commercial potential to be a part of grant proposals
through the development of commercialization plans;
·
Including the evaluation of market potential of new technologies as a milestone
component in research;
·
Facilitating the presence of industry on campus by creating an IRS exemption for
university-industry collaborations built around university-owned intellectual
property and conducted in university buildings;
·
Promoting a DARPA-hybrid model of collaboration between small firms and
universities; and Funding talent
collaborations, especially for universities with less-developed innovation
ecosystems.
Engaging with regional and local economic development efforts
Our universities will promote efforts to link regional and national stakeholders
together in support of research and education critical to local businesses and
industry by:
·
Striving to expand existing university participation in national, regional and
local economic development efforts.
·
Fostering consortia of research universities and industries across regions.
·
Working with the federal government and other stakeholders and professional
associations to improve the coordination of the nation’s venture accelerators,
including development of a searchable database of all federally funded
intellectual property.
·
Working with local, regional, state and business leaders to promote access to
assets such as research parks, accelerators, and laboratories to support
regional industries, especially existing and small, young companies.
·
Participating in developing and implementing economic strategies
·
Partnering in community development and revitalization efforts.
Recognizing exemplary economic engagement
To accelerate achievement of the goals outlined in this letter, we call on the
National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Obama
Administration to work with the higher education community to develop a national
program to identify, recognize and celebrate exemplars of “economically engaged”
universities. This program would:
·
Raise awareness about the importance of
higher education and economic engagement in driving regional and national
economic growth
·
Assist with the creation of
organizational assessment tools and measurement criteria that capture the full
range of our impact
·
Educate higher education leaders about
the practices of best-in-class institutions
·
Recognize national role models and honor
them with a Presidential Award for economic engagement.
Our universities, and the national associations that represent us, are committed
to sharing best practices, and to identifying additional federal policies that
will help to leverage investments made by government, and industry, in the
research conducted at our institutions. Further, we will continue to use
national forums, such the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM),
the University Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP) and the Commerce
Department’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to
engage in an ongoing dialogue with industry, non-profit foundations and the
government on how we can advance our shared objectives.
We are also seeking ways to collectively implement recommendations made by the
National Research Council in its October 2010 report, Managing University
Intellectual Property in the Public Interest.
Although the specifics of our strategies will vary, reflecting the diverse
missions and resources of our institutions, we pledge our universities to
greater efforts to advance regional and national economic growth. We are
dedicated to ensuring that the knowledge and technological breakthroughs
developed at our institutions are rapidly and broadly disseminated to advance
the nation’s social and economic interests.