Communications of the ACM
To Create Jobs, Streamline Technology Transfer, Report Says
Brian Darmody's report says streamlining federal policies on tech transfer and entrepreneurship will create jobs and new businesses.
Credit: University of Maryland
The U.S. government can stimulate the creation of jobs and businesses by streamlining its policies for bringing new technologies to market, says a report from the Association of University Research Parks (AURP). The report offers a 10-point plan, including targeted federal investments, and would be especially beneficial for high-tech states, according to its author.
"This is not only about money—it's also a matter of adjusting the policies and regulations that too often deter entrepreneurial researchers in our universities and federal labs from commercializing their work," says report author, Brian Darmody, president of the AURP and University of Maryland associate vice president for research and economic development.
"Job creation in the United States will largely depend on start-up companies and entrepreneurs who populate university research parks, laboratories and incubators across the nation," Darmody says. "These are the main centers of innovation in this country. Much more of their work would be commercially viable if some of the roadblocks could be eliminated. Other countries simplify commercialization and lure away U.S. corporate research. We need to provide incentives to keep this work in the United States."
These steps would have special impact in states with high academic research concentrations and federal laboratories, Darmody says.
"We're not getting the full economic benefit from federal R&D efforts and other programs," Darmody says. "The U.S. Secretary of Commerce calls technology commercialization a broken system. Our goal is to get it working again, which will help get Americans working again."
Ten-Step Program
The report, "The Power of Innovation," offers 10 federal steps that can create jobs, technology companies and Communities of Innovation without creating new federal bureaucracies.
These changes include making federal grant policies more flexible for technology commercialization; taking better advantage of the $25 billion in R&D spent internally in federal labs; and connecting federal researchers with the private sector.
The plan also supports pending federal legislation that would provide seed funding to create or expand research park infrastructure, and calls for "cash for commercialization"—federal grants to encourage researchers to commercialize their work. It also recommends tax policy changes that, for example, would make it easier for the private sector to license universities' intellectual property.
"The federal government invests billions of dollars a year in research and development at universities and federal labs, and technology led economic development programs," Darmody says. "All the moving parts in this system need better alignment if we want to get the wheels moving again."
Darmody presented his report Thursday (February 25) in Washington, D.C. at a National Academies' meeting: Clustering for 21st Century Prosperity, which included participants from the White House National Economic Council, the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, the director of the Small Business Administration. The report was presented on Capitol Hill on Friday (February 26).
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