Academic and professional resources for student-led technology ventures

Student researchers face daunting challenges when attempting to take a developed technology and use it as the foundation for an emerging enterprise. Engineering students typically lack an overall understanding of the commercialization process associated with academic research. Moreover, the resources required by the student span several disciplines including law, business, and engineering. Only recently have engineering programs included entrepreneurial courses covering the basic concepts that are essential for technology-business development. At the University of Michigan, such courses include an MBA business-plan development sequence that an increasing number of engineering graduate students elect, an undergraduate engineering course in business-plan development, and a patent-law class specifically for engineering students. Academic resources such as these significantly increase the likelihood of stimulating student entrepreneurial activity as well as successful commercialization of university research. However, these resources alone are typically insufficient. Professional resources, such as those offered by the Technology Management Office and the Zell-Lurie Entrepreneurial Institute at Michigan, provide business development support, ranging from one-on-one business development counseling to grant programs for emerging business from university research. In this paper, we discuss the complete process of commercializing academic research. We address critical academic and professional resources in the process of business development and how they have fostered entrepreneurial activity, which has contributed to successful commercialization of engineering research at the University of Michigan. Several of the challenges faced by the student entrepreneur have been addressed by these resources at Michigan, while others still require further development that is well underway. Here we report on these activities, while aspiring to foster inspiration for the development of entrepreneurial resources at engineering institutions across the country.