Multiple benefits

As if increasing research & development capacity wasn't a good enough end in itself, a new study shows that the spin-off developments are helping to feed more money into the university system:

According to the Survey of Intellectual Property Commercialization in the Higher Education Sector released by Statistics Canada Thursday, the number of inventions reported or disclosed by researchers to universities and hospitals increased to 1,133 from 1,105 between 2001 and 2003.

This research has led to the creation of more than 875 new businesses to date. In 2002 and 2003, 64 spin-off companies from technologies developed by their researchers alone. These spin-offs covered a wide range of industries, from computer systems design, to medical devices manufacturing.

During that time, the income from intellectual property rose $3-million, to $55.5-million from $52.5-million.

Universities share in this revenue with the inventors was 44 per cent, while 38 per cent went to inventors and co-inventors.

Now, the amount put toward research is far more than the amount recouped to universities so far, and will remain so in the long term. But it's still noteworthy to trace back the positive effect that the new developments have already had on universities, and to note that their stake in new companies could lead to far greater gains in the future.