The Stakes in Bayh-Dole: Public Values Beyond the Pace of Innovation

Abstract

Evaluation studies of the Bayh-Dole Act are generally concerned with the pace of innovation or the transgressions to the independence of research. While these concerns are important, I propose here to expand the range of public values considered in assessing Bayh-Dole and formulating future reforms. To this end, I first examine the changes in the terms of the Bayh-Dole debate and the drift in its design. Neoliberal ideas have had a definitive influence on U.S. innovation policy for the last thirty years, including legislation to strengthen patent protection. Moreover, the neoliberal policy agenda is articulated and justified in the interest of “competitiveness.” Rhetorically, this agenda equates competitiveness with economic growth and this with the public interest. Against that backdrop, I use Public Value Failure criteria to show that values such as political equality, transparency, and fairness in the distribution of the benefits of innovation, are worth considering to counter the “policy drift” of Bayh-Dole.

The evolving state-of-the-art in technology transfer research: Revisiting the contingent effectiveness model

“…Recently, there have been efforts to move from the realm of broad values discourse to application (Bozeman and Sarewitz, 2005;Slade, 2011;Valdivia, 2011). Bozeman and Sarewitz (2011) suggest that concerns about economic productivity have been dominant in science and technology policies and their assessment and that there is a need for greater infusion of public values in science and technology policy.…”

“…These researchers ground their work in public value failure theory (Bozeman, 2002(Bozeman, , 2007, and the theory also offers some purchase for practically evaluating technology transfer in terms of public values. For instance, Valdivia's (2011) approach shows promise. He employs the Public Value model in connection with university technology transfer.…”

Organizations, Policies, and the Roots of Public Value Failure: The Case of For‐Profit Higher Education

“…Bozeman ' s ( 2002Bozeman ' s ( , 2007 public value mapping framework provides a set of analytical heuristics for deliberation of public value that are built on here. Versions of this framework have been applied in a number of policy domains, including agricultural biotechnology (Bozeman 2007 ), cancer research (Slade 2011 ), green chemistry (Logar 2011 ), flu vaccines (Feeney and Bozeman 2007 ), federally funded climate science (Meyer 2011 ), university technology transfer (Valdivia 2011 ), and federally funded nanoscale science and engineering (Anderson and Slade 2013 ;Fisher et al 2010 ).…”

A moral economy of patents: case of Finnish research universities' patent policies

“…University of Helsinki 2006, 4). In this respect, justification for technology transfer has been based on similar assumptions as in the US (Valdivia 2011). This emphasis on the competitiveness reflects a 'competition fetish' (Naidoo 2011) that characterizes higher education in the age of academic capitalism.…”