Universities Selling Out Important Research to Corporate Overseers

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/uc-regents-using-public-research-private-gain



n a unanimous vote last month, the Regents of the University of California created a corporate entity that, if spread to all UC campuses as some regents envision, promises to further privatize scientific research produced by taxpayer-funded laboratories. The entity, named Newco for the time being, also would block a substantial amount of UC research from being accessible to the public, and could reap big profits for corporations and investors that have ties to the well-connected businesspeople who will manage it.

Despite the sweeping changes the program portends for UC, the regents' vote received virtually no press coverage. UC plans to first implement Newco at UCLA and its medical centers, but some regents, along with influential business leaders across the state, want similar entities installed at Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, and other campuses. UC Regents Chairwoman Sherry Lansing called Newco at UCLA a "pilot program" for the entire UC system.

The purpose of Newco is to completely revamp how scientific discoveries made in UC laboratories — from new treatments for cancer to apps for smartphones — come to be used by the public. Traditionally, UC campuses have used their own technology transfer offices to make these decisions. But under Newco, decisions about the fate of academic research will be taken away from university employees and faculty, and put in the hands of a powerful board of businesspeople who will be separate from the university. This nonprofit board will decide which UC inventions to patent and how to structure licensing deals with private industry. It also will have control over how to spend public funds on these activities.

Newco's proponents contend that the 501(c) 3 entity will bring much-needed private-sector experience to the task of commercializing university inventions. Ultimately, it will generate more patents, and thus bigger revenues for UC through licensing deals and equity stakes in startups, they claim. UC administrators also say they have established sufficient safeguards for Newco and that UCLA's chancellor and the regents will have oversight over the entity.

[Skidmore]

1. That's what happens when public funding for the

research is cut off.

[zazen]

2. hah! they don't even bother to mention "faculty governance" any more

Twenty-thirty years ago, as academic capitalism was ramping up, there was still a body of tenured, amply paid full-time faculty on campuses who had some say in these decisions. Now faculty are overwhelmingly adjunct or full-time without tenure, underpaid, brutally competing with each other, and desperate to keep their jobs.

We are assured that the "regents will have oversight"--if they're like boards in North Carolina, they're mostly big donors and corporate types to begin with.

The scariest thing--with this phenom called "institutional isomorphism," other universities will start to copy UC in a rush to the bottom. Tech transfer has overwhelmingly failed to live up to its promises for most IHEs.

[marmar]

3. k/r

[FarCenter]

4. This should help keep faculty from taking IP and doing startups without compensating the state