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Industry-University Research Partnerships: What Are the Limits of Intimacy?
THE GOVERNMENT-UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY RESEARCH ROUNDTABLE
The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable seeks to identify and to illuminate issues at the forefront of our nation’s science and technology enterprise. This brochure summarizes ideas exchanged at the March 2000 Roundtable Council meeting, which examined issues in large-scale, long-term collaborations between industry and universities. It does not, however, represent the views of individual participants nor a consensus view of the Roundtable Council. For information on the Roundtable, consult our homepage (www4.nationalacademies.org) or contact us directly via email (GUIRR@nas.edu).
Scores of ambitious and comprehensive university-industry research partnerships have been built in the past 20 years. For the companies involved, these large-scale, long-term commitments offer sustained access to trained students and the creativity of academic research. For universities they promise financial stability as well as student and faculty exposure to real-world problems.
These agreements are testing the traditional boundaries of the relationship in many ways.
They involve academic institutions more directly than ever in meeting society’s needs. For the companies, they require a measure of faith in the unguided process of academic research and a willingness to get involved in university governance.
They also have risks. Some say universities are endangering their central role—of impartial scholarship and social critique—by aligning themselves so intimately with industry’s priorities. Others believe these risks are manageable, so long as institutional leaders maintain effective safeguards against abuses and pay close attention to upholding core values.
In March 2000 the Roundtable convened a session to understand these emerging issues. To help illuminate its discussion, it invited experts from industry, universities, and government (meeting agenda provided following the text).
DIVERSITY AND SCALE OF THE NEW PARTNERSHIPS
Federal and state policies for 20 years have promoted the partnership of universities and industry in generating and marketing technology. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, in particular, created a new bull market in academic ideas by vesting the patent rights for federally financed research in the universities themselves. Other barriers have been lowered or removed. Federal programs such as the Advanced Technology Program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, seek to leverage industry ties with universities to accelerate progress in precompetitive technology research. State programs, such as the Georgia Research Alliance, have been launched enhance the competitiveness of state academic institutions in their pursuit of partnerships with industry and the Federal government.
Today, blockbuster unions between large corporations and major research universities place corporate and academic researchers in position to cooperate more freely than ever. The diversity of these deals can be appreciated from a few examples:
- Monsanto in 1982 entered a five-year agreement to establish a research program with Washington University, which has been renewed several times (for a total of $150 million). Monsanto scientists work alongside their WU peers, and many have been trained there. The university owns any resulting intellectual property, but Monsanto has rights of first refusal to license it exclusively. An Advisory Committee (split 50-50) makes strategic decisions.
- North Carolina State’s Centennial Campus in 1987 broke new ground by co-locating academic, corporate, and government research programs, entirely outside the traditional academic departmental structure. Its founders call it a “knowledge enterprise zone”—a new research campus developed expressly to build working partnerships. The campus receives more than $30 million annually in research spending. And it is only just beginning to grow; today’s 1,800 employees will mushroom in the next few years to more than 25,000.
- In 1998 Novartis (a Swiss pharmaceutical and crop biotech company) agreed to give $25 million to the University of California at Berkeley Department of Plant and Microbial Biology in return for first call on one-third of the department’s discoveries (including federally funded discoveries). The funds are competitively awarded to scientists in the program. UC scientists will also gain access to the company’s state-of-the-art research tools and databases.
- Emory University and Georgia Tech combined forces to share the benefits of corporate relationships built on knowledge of the human genome. EmTech Bio, sponsored by the state of Georgia, is an incubator for companies built on the two institutions’ research. It provides labs, research assistance, and access to business and scientific expertise across the full spectrum of drug discovery and development activities, from proof of concept to clinical evaluation.
The parties to these and other ventures are developing new ways of sharing—not only knowledge, but financial risks and benefits. Their commitments are for the long term.
MANAGING THE BENEFITS AND RISKS
Universities in America have the dual roles of social conscience and economic benefactor. They have always held these roles. But the past decades have seen a progressive increase in their attention to the market. Increasing competition among academic institutions for the best students and faculty also drives the search for new partnerships and sources of income.
The big university-industry partnerships go well beyond the traditional research relationships (built on short-term funding of individual researchers or small teams). They may include university-based research parks and incubators, short- and long-term research agreements, partnership approaches to student training, exchanges of faculty and industry personnel, consulting, joint use facilities, and university- or state-led seed capital programs. New mechanisms such as university-industry joint support for faculty members are also being tried. The old, stable structures are changing. Participants are seeking new roles.
How can we manage this transition? By serious attention to both the benefits and the risks, including safeguards against compromising academic integrity
Benefits are strong:
- Bringing corporate scientists into close working relationships with academic colleagues keeps both communities on their toes, and promises the most direct routes to commercialization (with corresponding economic benefits to the nation).
- Long-term, large-scale corporate commitments offer financial stability to universities (many of which have seen dramatic ups and downs). It often includes access to corporate facilities, and the hope of eventual patent royalties (with the companies footing the bill for patent costs). Such partnerships are among the few sources of unencumbered funds that universities have for general development purposes.
Risks are also real:
- It may be perceived that the research priorities of particular departments or entire institutions are skewed toward the product needs of particular companies, chilling the atmosphere for partnerships with other companies or government sponsors.
- University research could become too focused on the market and avoid areas that offer no quick payoff.
- Educational needs or the free flow of information could be shortchanged.
Universities and companies are developing new approaches designed to maximize the benefits and manage risks in these arrangements. In the UC Berkeley-Novartis agreement, for example, research funding is allocated by peer review, with no company input. A separate panel will also be set up to assess the impacts of the agreement on university culture over its first several years. Other universities, such as the University of California at San Diego, have made efforts to develop specific guidelines regarding conflict of interest, conflict of commitment, student involvement, use of university facilities and intellectual property.
Federal agencies also play an important role. The Federal government still provides the bulk of support for university research, and may therefore get involved when a university-industry partnership is seen as affecting agency or broader public interests. For example, several provisions of a 1992 agreement between Scripps Research Institute and Sandoz Pharmaceuticals were modified in response to concerns from the National Institutes of Health and others.
THE SEARCH FOR TRUE COMMITMENT
Every university-industry agreement of any size carries the risk of conflicting goals of the two partners. This conflict has always been latent in the relationship, even at the scale of the individual investigator.
In fact, there is reason to believe that the large, comprehensive agreements of today make it easier, not harder, to guard against conflicts, simply because their provisions are so public. The relationship of universities and industry will likely continue to evolve under the public spotlight.
Still, there remain unanswered questions about the shifting incentives involved in these close partnerships, and particularly the incentives of academic researchers. The Roundtable, among many others, has devoted much effort to cultivating the university-industry partnership, whose foundation is the creativity and long-term view of academic researchers. The bonds that tie the two parties, as they search for true commitment, will continue to occupy U.S. research leaders, and the Roundtable, in the coming years.
MEETING AGENDA
Universities and Industry as Intertwined Institutions: What Are the Limits?
March 14-15, 2000
Washington, DC
Industry Voices in University Governance
Alexander V. d’Arbeloff, Chairman, Teradyne Corp. and Chairman, MIT Board of Trustees
The Public’s Stake in Long-Term University-Industry Partnerships
Zell Miller, former Governor of Georgia and Distinguished Professor of Higher Education, University of Georgia
Industry Goals and Needs in Broad, Long-Term University Relationships
Richard Siudek, President, ABB Power Transmission and Distribution
Gary Pace, Vice President and General Council, Novartis Agribusiness Biotechnology Research
Paul Horn, Senior Vice President, Research, IBM
Models of Industry/University Intimacy
Cita Furlani, Acting Director, Advanced Technology Program, NIST
David Blake, Vice President for Academic Health Affairs, Emory University
Robert Conn, Dean of Engineering, University of California at San Diego
Can the Partners Manage Real Intimacy?
Robert Galvin, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Motorola
Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable: Background and Purpose
The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable was created almost two decades ago to provide a forum for dialogue on science and technology issues among top government, university, and industry leaders. The purpose is to facilitate working relationships and the exchange of ideas about emerging trends, problems, and promising opportunities facing those charged with developing and deploying scientific resources.
The Roundtable also seeks to stimulate new approaches to issues by disseminating the product of its deliberations, and by actively fostering contact and collaboration with other organizations able to build further on the ideas developed.
The Roundtable is sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
Funding
Core financial support for the Roundtable comes from federal R&D agencies and from our university-industry partnerships. Supplemental funding for specific activities comes from foundations, states, and other sources.
THE ROUNDTABLE COUNCIL
Members
JOE B. WYATT, Roundtable Co-Chairman, Chancellor, Vanderbilt University
WILLIAM H. JOYCE, Roundtable Co-Chairman, Chairman, President and CEO, Union Carbide Corporation
BRUCE ALBERTS, ex-officio, President, National Academy of Sciences
D. JAMES BAKER, Under Secretary for Oceans & Atmosphere, U.S. Department of Commerce
ROBERT BERDAHL, Chancellor, University of California-Berkeley
CAROL M. BROWNER, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
RITA COLWELL, Director, National Science Foundation
JAMES DECKER, Acting Director, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy
MORTIMER L. DOWNEY, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation
ROBERT V. EDWARDS, Professor, Computer Sciences & Engineering, Case Western Reserve University
CHARLES GESCHKE, President, Adobe Systems Incorporated
DANIEL GOLDIN, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
I. MILEY GONZALEZ, Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture
MARY GOOD, Managing Member, Venture Capital Investors, LLC
JEROME GROSSMAN, CEO, Lion Gate Management
PAUL HORN, Senior Vice President, Research, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
FREEMAN A. HRABOWSKI, President, University of Maryland-Baltimore County
SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
DEAN KAMEN, President, DEKA Research & Development Corporation
RAYMOND KAMMER, Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology
U.S. Department of Commerce
RUTH KIRSCHSTEIN, Acting Director, National Institutes of Health
NEAL LANE, President’s Science Advisor and Director, Office of Science & Technology Policy
SUSAN L. LINDQUIST, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Professor, University of Chicago
THE HONORABLE HANS MARK, Director, Defense Research and Engineering,
U.S. Department of Defense
JAMES MCGRODDY, Senior Vice President (Retired), IBM, Advanced Network & Services, Inc.
THE HONORABLE ZELL MILLER, Former Governor of Georgia
BERNARD SCHWETZ, Interim Chief Scientist, Food and Drug Administration
KENNETH SHINE, ex-officio, President, Institute of Medicine
WM. A. WULF, ex-officio, President, National Academy of Engineering
Roundtable Staff
Thomas Moss, Executive Director
Thomas Arrison, Associate Director
Raymond Fornes, Visiting Senior Scientist
Nina Kaull, Program Officer
Jocelyn Sands, Administrative Associate
Reginald Cunningham, Program Assistant
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