Abstract
This short book is an honest assessment of what has worked and what has not in building biotechnology clusters linked to two world-class universities—Yale in the United States and Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Based on qualitative research involving 115 interviews over the 2003-2008 period (with data updated more recently), the book provides a deep dive into the technology commercialization approaches at these two universities within the context of the broader literature on university technology transfer and commercialization. The book provides a perspective on the manner in which these universities contributed to the creation and expansion of local biotechnology clusters. This book is a solid contribution to the topic of the relationship of universities to regional economic development and provides new data on the case study universities. Although focused on just two universities, Breznitz pulls from the literature to make general points from the case studies and provides an assessment of major factors relating to how universities can positively influence their regional economy. The book should be of interest to those in university leadership and to those studying the topic of universities and regional economic development.
The 154-page book has six chapters, including an introduction and a short conclusion. Breznitz says that she selected Yale and Cambridge as case studies because they are both world-class universities that want to make a positive difference to their region, and because she spent time at both institutions and so they were convenient to study. After providing background information on both universities, Breznitz provides a nice and very well-referenced chapter on factors affecting university technology transfer. This chapter highlights how both internal and external factors relate to a university’s regional economic development impact. External factors include government policy, the regional innovation ecosystem, and historical development patterns. Internal factors include the university’s entrepreneurial culture, its technology transfer policies, and how the technology transfer office is organized and staffed. Following this context-setting chapter, she provides an overview of the national framework affecting technology commercialization in the United States and the United Kingdom. This includes how research and development (R&D) is funded, major elements of national science and technology policy, and the role of universities within the national framework. She observes that, whereas in the United States, industry relied on universities for R&D support for some time, industry–university relationships in Britain are a more recent development. The next two chapters are the core of the book—the first a detailed case study of Yale followed by a chapter on Cambridge. In both chapters external and internal factors were presented that relate to the universities’ successes in promoting the regional biotechnology industry. The case study chapters provide information from data sources as well as summary observations from the interviews from qualitative research. The chapters provide very detailed information on research funding, leadership and staffing issues, the role of internal and external organizations, the role of government and industry, and success in spinning out companies and building infrastructure (incubators, research parks) to support the growth of the technology sectors. Following these case study chapters, there is a chapter that compares the universities with respect to internal and external factors and what, in her view, was done correctly and what was not. The final chapter is a short conclusion that summarizes the book in light of larger issues. In the conclusion, she introduces but does not expand on some very broad topics such as the relationship of the focus of technology transfer to the “free-thinking” mission of universities and whether universities should be encouraged to focus on their core education and research missions.
The author has very positive comments about how Yale has stepped up to support the growth of its regional biotechnology industry. Yale had strong internal leadership from its president to other senior administrators who embraced the importance of supporting economic development through technology transfer and economic development. In particular, President Richard Levin is credited with changing Yale’s culture and supporting its regional development and community engagement mission. Yale also worked with external partners, including state and local officials and offices, in leveraging investments and assets. Yale also put into place technology transfer policies and programs to encourage spin-off development. The result is a strong biotechnology cluster including the R&D facilities of five pharmaceutical companies.
Breznitz is quite critical of Cambridge University. In particular, she calls out the Cambridge University technology transfer operation as being a barrier to commercialization. She points out that Cambridge experienced a decline in spin-off activity since 2000 and that this is a result of changes in policy and organization with the institution’s technology transfer and commercialization operations. She says that the tech transfer function is decentralized across units, and also many of the staff of the office, while credentialed and experienced in scientific matters, lack business understanding and experience. Her interviews found that people both within and outside of Cambridge University reported confusion on how to proceed and found the offices more of a barrier than a help.
However, Cambridge is ranked second in the world in biomedical research, and even though the university was not as proactive as it could have been in promoting a biomedical cluster, the sheer mass of its research and talent was able to overcome limitations to help support the building of a biotechnology cluster.
Many university administrators, particularly at public research universities, may not be able to relate to the situation at these two very well-funded and well-staffed institutions (e.g., Yale has an endowment of $24 billion). Also, the focus is on biotechnology, which requires a different approach to technology transfer and commercialization than engineering or information technology areas. Despite this, the book should provide good lessons to many other universities working to make a difference in their regions. The book emphasizes the importance of having supportive policies with well-staffed offices, having the support of the institution’s senior leadership from the presidential level down, and working with external partners in a shared vision. She provides excellent detail about faculty revenue sharing and conflict of interest policies, such as permission for faculty members to hold management positions in companies.
Despite my very favorable view of this book, I did find the book too “patent-centric.” She seemed to relate the ability of universities to build technology clusters mostly on how well they license technology and spin-off companies and not to broader outreach and engagement activities. She even refers to technology commercialization as the “third role of universities.” This is too narrow an approach. Very little was said about other ways to engage with industry beyond contracts and transactional activities instead of looking at the many ways universities can contribute to regional economic development and prosperity. This said, the book should stand tall as an important contribution to the literature on universities and economic development.