Technology transfer

Arizona State University has serious problems, and that’s just the way Michael Crow wants it.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: an academic novel, set at a fictional (but prestigious) American research university, portrays tenured faculty who are indolent but querulous; students whose main activities include protesting, avoiding classes, and popping pills; and an administration that’s disorganized, secretive, and ineffectual. Money and status are the primary concerns of professors and administrators alike; the community as a whole is characterized by lassitude and petty squabbling, while education is of minimal importance to anyone.

Why did the U. of Alabama at Huntsville team up with convicted con artist to produce a "revolutionary" new teaching tool that turned out not to have a market?

Federal law easing commercialization of federally funded inventions works, but universities should focus more on social impact of work and faculty role in process, report says.

With universities facing pressure to show the value of their research, to promote economic development and to find new sources of revenue, links between academic researchers and business are being encouraged and scrutinized intensely. The essays in a new book -- The Commodification of Academic Research: Science and the Modern University (University of Pittsburgh Press) -- explore these issues.

WASHINGTON -- A major foreign policy goal of the Obama administration has been to "reset" U.S.-Russian relations, building ties between the two nations at all levels. Several Russian university presidents on Wednesday said that the closer relationship was helping them build much closer ties to American higher education, with a focus on expanding research collaboration and embracing something close to an American style of technology transfer -- a relatively new development for Russia.

Trying to wring revenues from research poses risks to academe, one scholar warns.