KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 28, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation today unveiled the iBridge(tm) program, a Web-based platform designed to facilitate the licensing and sharing of technology discoveries from university laboratories. The iBridge(tm) application will serve as a clearinghouse for university innovation and provide an additional channel through which researchers can disseminate university-developed innovations, research methods and findings. iBridge(tm) is a program of the Kauffman Innovation Network -- an initiative created by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to advance innovations through education about best practices, research and fellowships.
The iBridge(tm) announcement was made at the Advancing Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference, which was hosted by the Kauffman Foundation and the Technology Transfer Society and attracted more than 175 top academicians and economic development and technology transfer officials in the area of innovation policy and entrepreneurship.
"Universities are tremendous wellsprings of knowledge," said Carl J. Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. "The iBridge(tm) program encourages widespread access to that valuable information, linking researchers with interested parties, and ultimately helping to more fully realize the innovation potential that research offers."
The iBridge(tm) application initially will be piloted by selected universities throughout the United States, including Washington University in St. Louis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Cornell University and the University of Kansas. It is expected that a total of seven U.S. universities will participate in the initial pilot in the coming months.
Specifically, the iBridge(tm) application is designed to ease the transaction burden on university technology transfer offices and encourage more open and efficient access to research by academics and other interested parties. The program also aims to expand the number and scope of collaborative relationships by increasing awareness of existing research across the country and facilitating exchanges among those who are conducting and/or using the research. Studies indicate that such relationships are a critical component in advancing new discoveries and may likely lead to even more ideas and inventions, in turn generating greater innovation potential and collectively fueling more entrepreneurial ventures around the country.
"Advances in research are now highly dependent on innovations developed at universities," said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of Advancing Innovation at the Kauffman Foundation. "The process has become part of a 'virtuous circle' for moving innovations, improving the welfare of society and even contributing to the U.S. economy and our comparative advantage in world markets. But, there is growing evidence that movement of innovations at universities is, in fact, not working as well as it could and should. Although the total numbers of inventions licensed are impressive, closer study reveals that -- by any measure -- the results are very spotty and uneven."
Since the 1980 passage of the Bayh-Dole Act, which gave universities the right to patent discoveries and inventions made with federal research funding, along with the obligation to license or otherwise move the new knowledge into practical use, more than 238 institutions in the United States have started technology transfer offices (TTOs) to manage the intellectual property pathway. Within the United States, more than 3,500 licensing deals are struck each year, with universities licensing to not-for-profit research institutions, entrepreneurs and existing firms, large and small. The total income to institutions in 2003 exceeded $1.3 billion.
But, according to research conducted by the Kauffman Foundation, there is growing evidence that innovations residing in universities are dormant for far too long.
In fact, research shows that a rather small proportion of universities and research faculty at those universities accounts for the great bulk of licensing activity. This pattern cannot be explained merely by invoking the 80/20 rule, which says that most results will predictably come from the few top performers. For example, there are elite universities that rank at the very top in federal research funds received annually, but far, far lower in patenting, licensing and start-ups.
A key obstacle in unlocking these innovations is that while hundreds of universities now have tech-transfer offices, few can afford to staff them optimally for all the work of evaluating and managing research output. Also, faculty researchers may not know when they've found something useful -- the uses may not be obvious -- and many don't file invention disclosures, not wanting to take time away from the lab.
"In short, amid all of the exultation (and in some cases concern) over the 'success' of enabling university innovations, the extent of the system's failure and opportunity have somehow been largely overlooked," said Mitchell.
How It Works
The flexible nature of the iBridge(tm) platform allows universities to adapt it in ways that best complement their existing processes for collaboration and technology transfer. Universities may use the iBridge(tm) application to license and distribute a variety of information, including software, research tools, databases, teaching materials, surveys and reference materials, that by themselves do not rise to the level of an innovation home run. Postings may also include a variety of research artifacts, as well as descriptions of ongoing research activities.
Most of these innovations are deemed not worthy of patents and are therefore shelved. But many of these shelved innovations are, in fact, valuable research tools or software that can be utilized to either accelerate research, or, if bundled with other innovations, developed as a commercially viable innovation for licensing. Unfortunately, these shelved innovations rarely find their way into the hands of interested third parties.
With the iBridge(tm) application, researchers will only need to post discoveries that may be of interest to others. Posting a discovery on the iBridge(tm) Web site not only formally discloses that a discovery has been made, it also safeguards the university's interest in its intellectual property by starting a record-keeping file. While anyone will be able to view the research published on the iBridge(tm) Web site, the program will initially focus on non-profit transactions only.
The iBridge(tm) application is powered by Flintbox(tm), a technology developed by the University of British Columbia that is currently in use at more than 30 Canadian universities.
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City is a private, nonpartisan foundation that works with partners to advance entrepreneurship in America and improve the education of children and youth. The Kauffman Foundation was established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Information about the Kauffman Foundation is available at www.kauffman.org.