A model to help bring discoveries to the marketplace

By Jonathan Thon. In a previous post I made the argument that one way of recovering federally funded-research costs and bringing discoveries and innovations to the marketplace is by having governments included in intellectual property agreements. My guess is that getting universities to give up their patent rights and ability to claim  indirect costs from incoming grants are going to be the major hurdles in academic reform. To justify this income, research institutions should be tasked with turning basic research programs covered by government grants into profitable (and therefore sustainable) ventures. Indeed, this was a conclusion shared by a report released by the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, State of the Nation 2010, showing that while Canada has talent and resources in spades, it is not leveraging them effectively to take a global leading role in innovation. More...