It’s not always easy to bridge the gap between academic research and the business world. Two recent articles offer perspectives on different aspects of the process:
- TURNING IDEAS INTO START-UPS. A recent New York Times article highlights university “idea incubators” – such as MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation — that help professors bring their innovations to market. Notes The New York Times:
“M.I.T. is in the vanguard of a movement involving a handful of universities nationwide that work closely with investors to ensure that promising ideas are nurtured and turned into successful start-ups.”
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COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN EXISTING BUSINESSES AND UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS. An article in MIT Sloan Management Review’s Summer 2010 issue identifies seven best practices for industry-university research collaborations. Why is that so important? The authors note that there is an “outcome-impact gap” — in that some collaborations between university researchers and businesses have major research outcomes, but don’t end up having comparably significant business impacts.