PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

19-Mar-2014

Contact: Bobbie Mixon bmixon@nsf.gov 703-292-8485 National Science Foundation

Industry-sponsored, academic research leads to innovative patents and licenses, says a new analysis led by Brian Wright, University of California, Berkeley professor of agricultural and resource economics.

The finding calls into question assumptions that corporate support skews science toward inventions that are less accessible and less useful to others than those funded by the government or non-profit organizations.

The analysis, based on a study of two decades of records from the University of California system, is in today's science journal Nature.

The National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences funded the study. "There are two potential interpretations of the report," said Joshua Rosenbloom, program director for Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP). "One is optimistic. Corporate funding leads to research that is more likely to be commercialized and this greater focus is good.

"The second reading is that corporate funding shifts the focus of research away from basic science," added Rosenbloom.

During the last few decades, the share of gross domestic product supporting research and development has been stable, but the corporate share has increased substantially. "This may reflect a shift in emphasis away from basic science discoveries that provide a basis for future commercialization," Rosenbloom said.

SciSIP supports interdisciplinary social science research that builds an evidence base for informed policy choices and contributes to a better understanding of the interactions between science, technology and innovation.

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Analysis: Industry-sponsored academic inventions spur increased innovation