Are universities turning into businesses?
This was the provocative question asked at the Federation of
American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Spring 2001
Policy Conference, held 7 May 2001 in Bethesda, Maryland.
"The university is very much a business," declared Ray White,
chief scientific officer of DNA Sciences. More and more higher
education institutions are establishing technology transfer offices
(TTOs) to deal with the enormous volume of intellectual property
that their faculties--"a new generation of entrepreneurs," as White
puts it--are developing. At universities, TTOs are "doing deals,"
negotiating with companies, and must really understand the
potential markets for their newly developed technologies.
But Maria Freire, director of the Office of Technology Transfer
at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is "concerned about the
university being seen as a business" and told the audience that the
top priority for biomedical scientists should be to get their
innovations out to the public as soon as possible. "Strategic
licensing" and "appropriate patenting" are Freire's mantras--the
current NIH stance being that inventions should only be patented if
that added protection would help bring that invention drug,
vaccine, etc. to the public more quickly. Freire went on to
acknowledge the importance of academic institutions and industry
partnerships, saying, "If the pipeline is not there, we all
lose."
And with more industrial involvement in academic science,
conflict-of-interest issues are bound to arise. Mary Sue Coleman,
president of the University of Iowa, noted that individual faculty
members, and even the institutions themselves, are forging
financial ties to companies in the form of equity, consulting
services, and paid speaking engagements. It's a tangled web that
universities may not be fully equipped to handle. Even patient
groups are getting involved, demanding royalties if their cells and
tissues are used in developing a new technology. [Editor's note:
Next Wave is readying a series of articles on conflict of interest:
Stay tuned for more details.]
So, how do academic-industrial ties affect junior scientists?
Coleman noted that trainees don't usually share in the financial
gains brought about by their work. Also, those academic-industrial
partnerships that specify a delay in publishing and disseminating
results can adversely affect (or at least restrict) the career
prospects of students and postdoctoral fellows.
This begs the question: Howshouldstudents and postdocs
approach research involving academic-industrial collaborations?
Although the conference did not deal with this question in detail,
it's an important one for junior researchers to consider.
Ultimately, what it boils down to is "buyer beware"--you need to
know what you're getting into. For example, before getting involved
in a hot industrial collaboration, students and postdocs should
find out if they will be required to delay publication or if they
will be prohibited from speaking at important scientific meetings,
particularly if they wish to remain in academia. So, if your PI
already has or is considering such a partnership, be sure to ask
her or him what kinds of strings may be attached.
So, what doyouthink about academic-industrial ties. Are
universities becoming businesses? If not, then should they? And
what have been your own experiences working on industry-funded
projects? What are their pros and cons? Share your thoughts and
opinions on Next Wave's Forum !