Creating a university technology commercialisation programme: confronting conflicts between learning, discovery and commercialisation goals

Abstract

Our knowledge-based society is pressing universities to transform from monastic scholarly enclaves into producers of new technologies and incubators of start-up firms. However, converting scientists’ curiosity-driven discoveries into commercially viable innovations has proven so difficult that observers liken the journey to crossing a ‘Valley of Death’. We conceptualise the challenges of commercialising university inventions in terms of three gaps: the technology discovery gap, the commercialisation gap, and the venture launch gap. We chronicle the inception and evolution of a technology commercialisation programme at the University of Oregon, relating how the university confronted and dealt with the three gaps, and describing the intra-organisational partnerships developed to address them. We find that negotiating the gaps requires assimilation of a technology commercialisation mission into the traditional academic missions of education and scientific discovery. To do this, universities must confront fundamental contradictions between learning, discovery, and commercialisation.