About $75 billion dollars is spent on academic research, and it makes way for little return on investment.  A very small amount of university research products ever makes it to the public market. Colleges and universities only provide a small proportion of the nation’s patents.  In 2016, academic institutions only produced 6,639 of the 304,126 patents according to the National Science Board. A possible reason for this is that faculty are awarded tenure and promotion based on measures such as how much research money they bring in and how many papers they publish, not their numbers of patents or start-ups or the licensing revenue they earn.  Obtaining a patent is a long process that can take seven years. It is easier for universities to calculate merit over papers instead of patents.   Read More >>