I have no issue with the principle that inventors should have meaningful input into the commercialization of their inventions. However, I don’t believe that data cited in this post support the argument that “giving inventors control of their inventions correlates with downstream spinout activity and fundraising.”
The cited Pitchbook university rankings are not specific to companies based on IP developed at the founder’s alma mater. Rather Pitchbook has counted the number of alumni entrepreneurs, and their companies, who have raised venture capital over a 10-year period. This is a measure of the entrepreneurialism of the student body of the institutions. Pitchbook does not use the term “spin-out” at all—it simply counts “companies,” many of which are likely founded by alumni entirely independent of their alma mater’s research outputs or IP policies. Indeed, the data do not align with published AUTM data on spin-outs arising from university IP.
Unless one assumes that institutional IP policies (which I contend most students are blissfully unaware of) somehow shape the entrepreneurial character of the student body, it is difficult to draw a causal link between those policies and the number of companies associated with each institution in the Pitchbook data.
My thinking around this issue has evolved somewhat since this article was posted (as you heard in my response to some questions in the AUTM panel). When you add in the data point of Bayh-Dole and US-based universities that are almost if not all institution-owned and which are generally outperforming Canadian universities, it becomes clear that policy around IP ownership is secondary to institutional culture with respect to commercialization.
I do stand by the conclusion: that top-down guidance on outcomes is a necessity, but the value of that policy is not to dictate a particular institutional policy so much as it is to incentivize (and ideally resource) commercialization activity. You are right that the institutional policy is not causally related, or if it is, it is at least secondary to the frameworks built around it to support and incentivize commercialization.
I'll take this comment as a kick to publish an updated version of this post in the near future!
I have no issue with the principle that inventors should have meaningful input into the commercialization of their inventions. However, I don’t believe that data cited in this post support the argument that “giving inventors control of their inventions correlates with downstream spinout activity and fundraising.”
The cited Pitchbook university rankings are not specific to companies based on IP developed at the founder’s alma mater. Rather Pitchbook has counted the number of alumni entrepreneurs, and their companies, who have raised venture capital over a 10-year period. This is a measure of the entrepreneurialism of the student body of the institutions. Pitchbook does not use the term “spin-out” at all—it simply counts “companies,” many of which are likely founded by alumni entirely independent of their alma mater’s research outputs or IP policies. Indeed, the data do not align with published AUTM data on spin-outs arising from university IP.
Unless one assumes that institutional IP policies (which I contend most students are blissfully unaware of) somehow shape the entrepreneurial character of the student body, it is difficult to draw a causal link between those policies and the number of companies associated with each institution in the Pitchbook data.
Thanks for pinging this!
My thinking around this issue has evolved somewhat since this article was posted (as you heard in my response to some questions in the AUTM panel). When you add in the data point of Bayh-Dole and US-based universities that are almost if not all institution-owned and which are generally outperforming Canadian universities, it becomes clear that policy around IP ownership is secondary to institutional culture with respect to commercialization.
I do stand by the conclusion: that top-down guidance on outcomes is a necessity, but the value of that policy is not to dictate a particular institutional policy so much as it is to incentivize (and ideally resource) commercialization activity. You are right that the institutional policy is not causally related, or if it is, it is at least secondary to the frameworks built around it to support and incentivize commercialization.
I'll take this comment as a kick to publish an updated version of this post in the near future!