Ask HN: What Are Outcomes of University Research

8 points by trueneverland 11 years ago | 3 comments

If someone with greater depth of knowledge knows more, can you explain this to me.

I believe there are two major roles of a university, the academic side (teaching students) and the research side. If there is a 3rd or more, please list them.

On the academic side you have professors and counselors helping students earn their degrees and charge tuition, etc... On the research side there are grants and stipends and funding to make the research happen. What does that lead to? Is it mostly just public research that gets disclosed? Do they ever commercialize the research. Is there more to this that I am simply not grasping?

Thanks

Rhapso 11 years ago |

As a researcher you have a cycle of motivation. You need to publish papers to journals (semi-public) to get grants.

Grants lead both to more publications (again public) and patents (normally co-owned by you and your university).

Patents are then licensed by the university to companies to commercialize. Sometimes we academics decide to commercialize research ourselves, but more often universities license patents to government contractors who are supported by the initial grant-providing government agency.

pgbovine 11 years ago |

See here: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/technology/report/20...

While some of this foundational work was done in government labs, a fair amount came out of university labs.

The primary outcome of university research is validated ideas in the form of academic papers. 99% of those papers will be forgotten in a decade (and derided by cynics in hindsight as "useless ivory towering"). But the remaining 1% will push the world forward in meaningful ways. The main issue is that it's impossible to tell which projects will lead to that 1%, so funding agencies try to invest broadly. That's the optimistic view, at least :)

LukeFitzpatrick 11 years ago |

A 3rd approach to University outreach:

Work placement programs/ mentorship/ networks Ex. Ivy League