Commercializing science: nineteenth- and twentieth-century academic scientists as consultants, patentees, and entrepreneurs

Abstract

International audienceThe collection of essays introduced in this article contributes to the debate on the commercialization of academic science by shifting the focus from institutional developments meant to foster university technology transfer to the actions of individual scientists. Instead of searching for the origins of the ‘entrepreneurial university,’ this special issue examines the personal involvement of academic physicists, engineers, photographic scientists, and molecular biologists in three types of commercial activity: consulting, patenting, and full-blown business entrepreneurship. The authors investigate how this diverse group of teachers and researchers perceived their institutional and professional environments, their career prospects, the commercial value of their knowledge and reputation, and their ability to exploit these assets. By documenting academic scientists’ response to market opportunities, the articles suggest that, already in the decades around 1900, commercial work was widespread and, in some cases, integral to academics’ teaching and research activity

Measuring Global Patenting of Universities and Public Research Institutes

“…Academic patenting is not new (Mercelis et al 2017). For a long whilebefore laws such as the Bayh-Dole Act came to passacademics enjoyed the privilege of having the first commercial rights over their inventions (Kelly 2016).…”

“…Universities and public research institutes played important roles in propelling developments in agriculture, aviation, and the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors as early as the nineteenth century (Mowery et al 2004;Rosenberg and Steinmueller 2013;WIPO 2015). Academic patenting has also been used by university researchers since the late 1800s (Mercelis et al 2017).…”

Academic entrepreneurship and institutional change in historical perspective

“…What we offer here is a selection of five of the papers that were presented and discussed at those meetings, and in particular those dealing more specifically with the relationship between academic entrepreneurship and institutional change. (For another set of articles, concerned with the commercialization of academic science, see Mercelis, Galvez Behar, and Guagnini 2017). The contributions of those papers are summarized in Table 1.…”

Living in between: The commercial side of Silvanus P. Thompson 's engineering

“…2 Gay & Barrett (2002) highlight Quakerism as a main factor of this "generalist attitude," but they also argue that this was by no means a weakness or a negative aspect. 3 For a survey of the engagement of professors of physics and engineering in commercial activity, see MacLeod (2012); Arapostathis & Gooday (2013a); Mercelis, Galvez-Behar, & Guagnini (2017); . 4 Smith & Wise (1989); Gooday (2004); Arapostathis & Gooday (2013a).…”