Table 2 Motivating factors and perceived limitations in engaging with industry
Motivation | |
Acquiring resources | “Human capital, equipment, and access to proprietary information”, funds for “post-docs” and “space” “feed back into better science” [67] |
Aquiring funds for “newer equipment for their laboratories” [68] | |
Funds for their research” and “PhD projects and payments for lab tests, research materials, salaries, or conference travels.” [69] | |
Personal reward | Obtain a personal financial reward [68] |
Interviewees stress that they do not “get a penny” [69] | |
Societal Impact | “All of us know someone who has died of cancer. […] Fluorescent in situ hybridization is a way […] to help diagnose cancer. [...] I am very, very proud of what we have accomplished” [65] |
New School Professor: “I’ve had cancer twice. I’ve had many friends die from HIV. [...] (M)y research [...] deals with HIV and cancer. If I feel that I have an opportunity here to make a difference”, “collaborations between universities and industry will have positive societal benefits as they speed the discovery and development of new therapeutics” [67] | |
Others | Interesting work [69], Reputation with industry and learning opportunities [68], High-level influence in the respective field [66] |
Limitations | |
Conflict of Interest | “Virtually all [of 27 interviewees currently engaged in public-private partnerships] expressed concerns about conflict of interest related to private industry” [77] |
“I don’t care what they write into the contract in terms of independent reporting... the reality is that they’re not going to bite the hand that feeds them. [...]. It may not be intentional but the university will err on the side of being favorable to industry. We all know how you can paint a different picture with the same set of circumstances without ever lying.” [65] | |
Academic Freedom | Old school type: “There’s a certain greedy, ‘have it now’ mentality that may motivate people to try to get out there and do something dramatic from which they’re going to profit in a short time. Some people even choose their scholarly area in order to position themselves in that respect” [67] |
“If someone else files a patent that conflicts with your work, that could really impair your research” [67] | |
Research shift | Old School Type: “in biomedical science, there is a very widespread feeling that the higher quality you are, the more you’re going to be raking in, the more patents you’ll have, and the more companies you’ll be associated with. [...] There is a big reorganization under way such that traditional fields, small low funded fields that endow the institution with great diversity, are going by the wayside. What you’re going to wind up with are big juggernauts of work in a few areas like functional genomics.” [67] |
Secrecy | Old School Type: “It’s anathema to me that you can find people in academic settings who won’t talk about what they’re doing. They can’t tell you what they’ve found because of patents, pending patents, or applications. If you can’t talk openly, it’s bad” [67] |
Reluctant Entrepreneur: “My lab generates knowledge that could be of great value to companies. Since it is not done in a company, the knowledge could be viewed as a loss to some firms. But we want to be able to publish it. So the company might have an incentive to restrict or control our research” [67] | |