Dear Colleagues,
The next Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy Research virtual seminar is Thursday, December 7, from 11:00-12:00 ET. Sharique Hasan (Duke University) - will present "The commercial potential of science and its realization: Evidence from a measure using a large language model". Click HERE to register for the 12/7 seminar (abstract is below). We hope you join us.
Please visit this LINK to view and register for upcoming Fall seminars.
- - Tim Folta (UCONN), Maryann Feldman (ASU), and Supradeep Dutta (Rutgers U)
Abstract: The research of universities and government labs---what we will call science--- contributes to technical advance and economic growth. Despite the potential, obstacles in the commercialization process hinder the full realization of these scientific contributions. We aim to identify which scientific contributions have commercial potential and understand what restricts their commercialization. We also seek to discern if lower commercialization rates for some institutions are due to challenges in the commercialization process or because the science there has lower commercial potential. We introduce a new text-based measure of commercial potential for scientific articles. Using this measure, we study the commercialization process with two empirical exercises. First, we analyze the commercialization of over 92,000 articles from a leading research university. Our measure predicts which science is disclosed, investments by the TTO, patent filings, startup formation, and licensing. As highlighted by our analysis, the primary barrier to commercialization is either the scientists' decision not to disclose their discoveries or the TTO's limited awareness of pertinent researchers or science within their institutions. Thus, many high-potential articles remain undisclosed, and undisclosed science is much less likely to be cited in corporate patents. Second, we analyzed the commercialization outcomes of nearly 4 million articles published between 2010-2022. Articles with high commercial potential are more frequently incorporated into patents, regardless of their originating institution. High-potential discoveries from institutions with a history of low commercial impact have commercialization rates 10% lower than their peers.