Survey of Higher Education Efforts to Create and Spin off New Companies

The study presents detailed data on the efforts of medical schools, business schools, schools of engineering and information technology and offices of technology transfer, sponsored research and others to create and spin off new companies. Survey participants include Vanderbilt University, Boise State, the University of London, Northwestern University’s Kellog School of Management, Washington University, UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Mississippi, the Rochester Institute of Technology, Université du Québec à Montréal, the University of Missouri Kansas City, and many more. The 75-page study covers trends in the number of new start-ups and spinoffs, financing provisions, equity stakes, and much more. The report helps its readers to answer questions such as: which faculties are most involved in new start-ups? What is the role of alumni? Professors? Students? What are colleges doing to incubate and develop new companies? What kind of revenues can be expected? How many colleges have start-up funds and how large are they? How many are providing subsidized office space? Do the colleges take an equity stake in the companies that they spin off? If so what is this stake? How does company development compare with technology licensing as a means of developing and commercializing college/university resources? What kind of metrics are colleges developing to assess programs? Just a few of the report’s many findings are that: • More than 25% of the companies in the sample started by the colleges sampled are largely controlled by alumni of the college; for public colleges, 31.55% of start-ups were controlled by alumni. • Individual departments or schools such as business schools or medical schools were more aggressive in equity retention than were college-wide efforts sponsored by licensing or research offices. • Funds directly from the college accounted for 10.45% of total funding with a median of 0, meaning that most colleges did not provide funds directly. • The number of start-ups founded in 2104 increased an aggregate 11.75% in 2014 for the colleges in the sample.