To maintain growth, strong and sustained funding for basic research is necessary to assemble a pipeline of great ideas. Basic research provides the building blocks and foundation for much of what we do in technology transfer. The origins of a great many inventions society depends on today can be traced back to a discovery made at the bench as a basic research project. Some outside observers however, assume that the amount of money we put into research should directly translate to money as licensing revenue. Over the last two decades, federal research funding has been on the rise each year with around $63.7B reported by 194 respondents in the FY12, AUTM Licensing Survey – up from $12B in 1991. If you were to plot research funding and number of new invention disclosures over time on the same graph, you would find that the two lines mirror each other amazingly well. In other words, research drives innovation. Some look at the $63.7B a year of federal money in research, compare that to the $2.6B of licensing revenue in FY12, and conclude that this outcome is a bad return on the investment in federal research. Although a tempting comparison to make, it
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From the Director: What Does the AUTM Survey Tell Us?
Each year the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) conducts an annual licensing survey capturing metrics related to research, patenting, and licensing. The survey attempts to capture a broad array of metrics with the goal to convey the effects of technology transfer on economic development and improvement of human lives. These metrics include product vignettes that describe how university technology transfer is making a better world, but – to AUTM’s great disappointment – it is the dollars and cents that get the greatest attention each year. While the AUTM licensing survey is in its 21st year, there isn’t 21 years of data from all data points or all research universities. However the data is substantial and reveals some very interesting trends in U. S. technology transfer: Over the last two decades, research funding has been on the rise each year and around $61B was reported in 2011, up from $12B in 1991. If you plot that data on the same graph as new invention disclosures, these two lines mirror each other amazingly well. Although on a different scale, invention disclosures have also increased each year to an all-time high in 2011 of nearly 22,000; up from just 5,000 in 1991.
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