Friday, August 29, 2008

How We See It

College cooperation would be key attractor

By Mass High Tech Staff

Who would have thought that Texas, viewed as a home of rugged individualism, would have used teamwork and collaboration to beat Massachusetts out of a business deal?

As we describe in Cache & Packets this week, Danish wind turbine giant Vestas Wind Systems A/S was looking for a new North American headquarters, and the Bay State and the Lone Star State were finalists. We lost out to Houston, as it turns out, because our colleges and universities aren’t cooperating enough over intellectual property to suit Vestas.

That dilemma echoed what was discussed at our recent MHT life sciences roundtable, when Christoph Westphal, CEO of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, asked UMass President Jack Wilson what could be done to speed up the year’s worth of wrangling required to license IP from local university researchers. Wilson, a former tech executive himself, agreed the situation was frustrating and found himself in the position of having gone from railing against the process to now defending it. Multiply that process by the number of leading-edge colleges in the area, and you will get an idea of what frightened Vestas away.

There is no doubt that New England colleges are producing the future of technology. Collaborating to get that nascent technology into the hands of the commercial world needs to be a priority.