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

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Author
Aten, Kathryn
Meyer, Alan D.
Krause, Alan J.
Metzger, Matthew L.
Holloway, Samuel S.
Date
2011Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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.
Description
Author Kathryn Aten wrote this paper when affiliated with the Naval Postgraduate School.
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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