Launch pad: the secret formula for university tech commercialization.

• Author: Sutherland, Spencer
• Position: Techknowledge

After more than a century of preparing students for jobs, the University of Utah is now gaining a national reputation for preparing jobs for students. For the second straight year, the U has ranked No.1 in the country in creating new startup companies. This designation places the U ahead of technology powerhouses MIT, Columbia, Cal Tech and Johns Hopkins.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

From 2009 to 2010, 18 new companies resulted from university research projects. Since 1970, when the school launched its first startup company, the university has helped launch more than 200 businesses--with more than 125 of them formed in the past six years. In 2009 alone, these companies indirectly or directly accounted for 15,767 jobs, $754.5 million in personal income and $76.6 million in tax revenue.

Making the Most of Its Students

What puts the U ahead of other research schools is "a very subtle distinction" says lack Brittain, vice president of technology venture development for the school. "Most universities approach commercialization as something they do to the university," Brittain explains. "Our approach to commercialization is something that we do with the university."

That means that rather than finding an outside venture capitalist to control the new technologies, the school's commercialization department works to integrate all of its activities into the core mission of the university.

There are also more tangible differences, such has how the university uses its money and its students. In 2010, the U spent $450 million on research, compared to the $1.4 billion spent by MIT

"We're distinctive in having a very large number of students involved," Brittain says of the 2,000 students working on research projects. "That enriches the educational environment and also provides us with a tremendous amount of energy and intellect that goes into all aspects of commercialization, whether it is in our own inventions or students inventions."

The university also uses students to help compensate for limited personnel resources. MBA students, for example, are enlisted to perform market research for new products, and law students work on intellectual property issues.

"The interesting thing about engaging students in what we do is that it makes every one of our full-time professionals a teacher. The more they teach, the more they learn as they respond to students' questions. It's a really important part of continuous improvement on the operations side," says Brittain.

The...