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In April 2010, over 140 leaders from higher education endorsed and submitted a letter to then Commerce Secretary Locke through his National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). They committed to work more closely with industry, private foundations, investors, and local, state, and federal governments to enhance efforts to promote innovation, entrepreneurship, and the commercialization of research results. Underlining their commitment was a willingness to employ strategies, enhance existing activities, and expand efforts in several areas, including:
William Marsh Rice University - commonly referred to as Rice University or just Rice - is a private research university located in Houston, Texas. Since its establishment in 1912, Rice has grown into a highly regarded research university with an expanding entrepreneurship program.
Rice is noted for applied science programs in the fields of artificial heart research, structural chemical analysis, signal processing, space science, and nanotechnology. It was ranked first in the world in materials science research by the Times Higher Education (THE) in 2010[[#_edn1|[i]]]. Under the leadership of President David W. Leebron, Rice has maintained a very high level of research activity for its size, with $115.3 million[[#_edn2|[ii]]] in sponsored research funding in 2011.
Activities that support commercialization of research have also become a hallmark of Rice University. By the late 1990s, it became clear to a Rice University business professor that entrepreneurship and research programs at Stanford University and MIT were economic development catalysts in the Silicon Valley and greater Boston regions, respectively. Consequently, Rice decided that it had a duty and academic pedigree to replicate the human capital and economic development successes in the Houston, Texas region. With seed funding by former Rice president, Dr. S. Malcolm Gillis, their entrepreneurship program, known as the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship that brings together the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of natural sciences and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business in a strategic collaboration, opened in 2000.
Below is an enumeration of Rice University programs that support the five buckets in the NACIE sponsored university commitment letter.
'''Rice University Technology Venture Challenge[[#_edn3|'''[iii]''']]''' is a business plan competition where undergraduate students submit business plans for new technology ventures. Ventures have ranged from a solar-powered electric vehicle, improved tools for liposuction, low-cost vision testing device for individuals from developing countries, improved dry-eye diagnostic tool, improved defibrillator to ensure proper placement, among others.
'''CoRE—Community of Rice Entrepreneurs''' is a Rice undergraduate student entrepreneurship club that founded the business competition which is open to all Rice undergraduate students. The competition is supported by ''the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship'', ''the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership'' (RCEL), and ''Finger Interests'', a local investment firm headed by Jerry Finger, who is also an Adjunct Professor in Management at the Jones Graduate School of Business.
*The grand prize is $5,000 in cash. More than 25 judges from the Houston business and investment community evaluate the business plan presentations.
In 2011 '''the Rice Alliance[[#_edn4|'''[iv]''']]''' awarded prizes to all eight engineering and science graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who presented a four-minute pitch on their research findings and commercial applications for promising nanotechnology research at Rice University.
'''The Rice University Business Plan Competition '''(RBPC) is the World’s Richest and Largest (according to Rice), awarding more than $1.3 million in prizes; Over 133 past competitors are in business today having raised in excess of $394 million.
'''Since 2001, 133 RBPC teams''' have launched their companies and are still in business today, raising a total of nearly $400 million in funding[[#_edn5|[v]]].
'''In April 2012, 42 teams''' from around the world will compete in front of 250 judges for an expected $1.3 million in prizes.
*The idea is simple: start tech companies over the course of three days
'''Faculty Advisory Committee''' is one of the internal advisory bodies of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship (Rice Alliance), a nationally-recognized initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education, and the launch of technology companies.
'''Faculty members''' also work closely with the Office of Technology Transfer to protect intellectual property developed by them during their pursuit of the university’s mission of providing an unsurpassed educational experience to its students and serving the educational needs of the larger community.
'''Rice Innovation Management System '''(RIMS)[[#_edn6|[vi]]] is an on-line system by the Office of Technology Transfer that allows researchers, especially faculty, at Rice to disclose their research innovations electronically. This new technology is the first step that professors take to turning their inventions into a product or service. By using the new system, faculty members will be able to reap some of the financial benefits of their inventions, create opportunities to receive additional funding for research and also helps them coordinate with other researchers if there is more than one group working on an invention.
'''The Rice Office of Technology Transfer '''(OTT)[[#_edn7|[vii]]] is a component of the University’s outreach efforts to make the benefits of new discoveries available to the public. OTT provides a service to Rice faculty members, students and staff researchers by protecting intellectual property developed by them.
*The OTT facilitates the interaction between academia and industry, so that science may be transformed into technology.
'''The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship''' (Rice Alliance)[[#_edn8|[viii]]] is Rice University’s nationally-recognized initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education, and the launch of technology companies. It was formed as a strategic alliance of three schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business in collaboration with the Vice Provost and the Office of Research.
*Since its inception in 2000, the Rice Alliance has assisted in the launch of more than 250 start-ups which have raised more than half a billion dollars in early-stage capital
*More than 26,000 individuals have attended Rice Alliance events in the past nine years and over 24,000 individuals subscribe to the Rice Alliance Digest newsletter
Rice University has initiatives that form part of its industry collaboration. These include: '''The Virginia and L.E. Simmons Family Foundation Collaborative Research Fund[[#_edn9|'''[ix]''']]'''. The foundation generously provided $3 million over five years for collaborative research among investigators at Rice University, Texas Children’s Hospital, and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute.
*The program is designed to promote truly excellent, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research among investigators at the three institutions
*The program focuses on junior investigators who have not yet established funding as well as experienced investigators who are new to collaboration among the three institutions
Rice's '''Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology[[#_edn10|'''[x]''']]''' has on-going research collaboration with '''nanoAlberta''', part of '''Alberta Advanced Education and Technology''' in Canada, to address issues surrounding the production of petrochemicals from Alberta's oil sands, one of the world's largest reserves of recoverable oil.
'''Rice University '''is also one of'''Texas Instrument’s[[#_edn11|'''[xi]''']]''' primary academic partners for research in embedded processing. Rice's digital signal processing (DSP) researchers recently won a new, three-year $1 million grant under the program.
'''Rice 360°[[#_edn12|'''[xii]''']]''' draws on the diverse experience of faculty from the Jones School of Management, the Baker Institute of Public Policy, and the Schools of Social Sciences, Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Engineering to determine how to make technologies available, meaningful, and useful to people around the world. These technologies include a '''low-cost incubator''' designed Rice students that is with phototherapy lights based on the Blantyre Hot Cot, which has been used in a Malawi hospital now for four years to treat babies with neonatal jaundice.
*Is innovation an integral part of Rice’s institutional culture?
*How does your institution leverage (or intend to leverage) geographic endowment?
*Are your innovation, entrepreneurship, and tech transfer programs integrated?
<ul style="list-style-type:circle;">
<li>Why, or why not?</li>
</ul>
*Are there any unique successes (and or challenges) you may wish to highlight?
Rice University is a leading private research University and an Association of American Universities (AAU) member school. Mr. Brad Burke’s comments have been instructive in better understanding Rice’s various innovative entrepreneurship, research, and technology transfer programs. It also frames the NACIE commitment letter by way of Rice University’s strategic plans and institutional culture.
The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship welcomes thanks Rice’s assistance with this case study, and looks forward to a continued close and collaborative relationship in building America’s innovation infrastructure.
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<br/>Source: "The Innovative and Entrepreneurial University: Higher Education, Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Focus", Department of Commerce, October 2013.
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[[Category: Deep Dives]]