Trends and Transitions in the Institutional Environment for Public and Private Science

Academic research commercialization is examined in order to investigate shifting relationships between public and private science in the academic community. The last quarter century has displayed an enormous amount of change in academic involvement with commerce. Broad university-based efforts to identify, manage, and market intellectual property have accompanied broad shifts in the relationship between academic and proprietary approaches to the distribution and use of science and engineering research. Data for this study were gathered from a fifteen-year panel of university-level, research-intensive U.S. campuses so as to document trends and changes in relationships among multiple indicators of academic and commercial engagement. Conclusions show that the rules of the academic enterprise have not remained stable. If entrants increase institutional durability and if universities are a key source of changes to their environments, then these changes are likely to emerge from organizations adapting and because of innovation by the expert and resource-rich incumbents who dominate academic technology transfer efforts. (JSD)