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On the economic impact of university proof of concept centers

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Abstract

University proof of concept centers (PoCCs) are an organizational innovation intended to improve the dissemination and commercialization of new knowledge. During the past 15 years, at least 32 university-affiliated PoCCs have been established at universities within the United States. Despite this recent growth, little systematic empirical research exists relating to the organization or impact of PoCCs. Analyzing data published by the Association of University Technology Managers, we find that universities affiliated with a PoCC enjoy a positive and statistically significant increase in the number of spinoffs established each year after adoption. While additional research is needed, our findings are consistent with the presumption that PoCCs may offer a promising new tool for regional and national economic development.

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Notes

  1. The transfer and commercialization of new knowledge is often framed in terms of a broader trend higher education whereby colleges and universities are more closely linked to the private sector and therefore economic outcomes. Relevant conceptual models in the literature include the scholarship of Bok (2003), Slaughter and Rhodes (2004), and Rothermael et al. (2007), among others.

  2. Partners in this cooperative effort included the Department of Energy along with the Economic Development Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  3. The six organizations that received funding included the Iowa Innovation Network i6 Green Project in Ames; the Proof of Concept Center for Green Chemistry Scale-up in Holland, Michigan; the iGreen New England Partnership; the Igniting Innovation (I2) Cleantech Acceleration Network in Orlando, Florida; the Louisiana Tech Proof of Concept Center in Ruston; and the Washington State Clean Energy Partnership Project.

  4. See Bradley et al. (2013) for a review of entrepreneurship and technology commercialization challenges that PoCCs are intended to address.

  5. These 32 PoCCs are fairly evenly distributed throughout the United States as shown in Fig. 1. Based on U.S. Census Bureau regions, 7 are in the West, 9 in the Midwest, 10 in the Northeast, and 6 in the South.

  6. See, http://www.autm.net/Home.htm.

  7. For example, for a PoCC was started in 2008, the mean number of startups before the creation of the PoCC was calculated using the number of startups in 2004 through 2007 even if startup data were available prior to 2004; and the mean number of startups after the creation of the PoCC was calculated using the number of startups in 2009 through 2012, for 2012 being the last year of available data.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Lydia Hassell at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for her able assistance in constructing the database analyzed in this paper.

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Correspondence to Christopher S. Hayter.

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Hayter, C.S., Link, A.N. On the economic impact of university proof of concept centers. J Technol Transf 40, 178–183 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-014-9369-4

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