Do Universities Exploit Their Intellectual Capital?

UK universities have a long way to go in order to make appropriate commercial gains from the intellectual capital (IC) generated by their academics and researchers, according to a major new survey.

Despite the hype surrounding the commercial exploitation of intellectual capital as a potentially significant source of funding for HE institutions, the survey suggests that in most cases it is pretty modest in English and Welsh universities.

The study, Commercial Exploitation of Intellectual Capital in English and Welsh Universities, undertaken by Wheeler Associates/McCallum Layton on behalf of Morgan Cole Solicitors, found that cash generated by exploiting IC amounted to no more than 0.2% of institutional funding on average across the institutions surveyed, and even in the most successful cases no more than 2.5%.