Universities can boost economy, group told

Economic development prompted by research university activities can take many forms, according to speakers at Wednesday's Technology to Market "Horizons" event at the University of Utah.

People with experience in research universities in Utah, Indiana and Colorado told differing tales about how economic development can result from research parks, faculty and student research activities and private-sector involvement in university initiatives.

David Norton, chief executive officer of the Utah State University Research Foundation, noted that Brigham Young University, the U. and USU are "great" research universities.

"These three universities should serve as engines for leveraging technology for local economic development," he said. "Economic development is having a net gain to the community for the technology that is developed so that the local economy is stimulated, not only through the hiring of human resources, but by the wealth these organizations can achieve."

Universities have missed out on some opportunities from faculty research "because the state was reluctant to openly allow us to embrace equity," he said, leaving faculty to sell equity when their product developed a market.

Holding back faculty's commercialization is a business sense that an experienced corporate professional can add, he said.

"Most of our professors have intellectual property. They invest them in a product-like configuration, but it may lack and usually lacks the strict marketing understanding that is needed," he said.

"In the area of management, Utah, and certainly northern Utah, has a significant shortage of experienced management across the management chain to bring in, in order to have experience to build a corporation. And therefore that becomes one of our challenges."

Norton also said faculty often are unwilling to let someone else share in their potentially lucrative ideas.

"The entrepreneur must be willing to have a small piece of the big pie rather than a little pie. And that attitude itself can make the difference in the opportunity for the individual, but also for economic development to become a success," Norton said. "A hamburger shop can be run by Mom and Pop; high tech takes more than that."