higher ed

A record number of U.S. students received doctorates in 2012, according to new data from the National Science Foundation. For the first time, the number of doctoral recipients broke 50,000, with a final tally of 51,008. Total doctorates awarded grew by 4.3 percent over the previous year, the largest increase since 2007 and a significant improvement from the previous four years in which the numbers remains fairly steady.

New York City Deputy Mayor Robert Steel announced that it will establish a new $100 million venture fund for life sciences research according to Crain's New York. The city will invest an initial $10 million to establish the new biotech venture fund. The city already has an additional $40 million pledged from private-sector partners — Celgene, GE Ventures and Eli Lilly & Co. The city currently is seeking to partner with a venture-capital firm to manage the fund and invest at least $50 million to the fund.

University-industry collaborations need a paradigm shift from the traditional one-way knowledge transfer model to a two-way knowledge co-creation model, according to a new report from the Big Innovation Centre (BIC) — Collaborate to Innovate.

U.S. spending on higher education research and development (R&D) declined in FY12 (after adjustments for inflation) for the first time in almost 40 years, according to data from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The decrease marks the end of a period of modest growth since 2009 in which R&D expenditures increased at an average of five percent each year. While data on higher education R&D spending by state is not yet available for FY12, NSF has released state data through FY11, including expenditures by funding source

Efforts to make university funding dependent on performance outputs have done little to increase degree completion rates, according to researchers from the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE). A WISCAPE study finds that state initaitives to make university funding dependent on number of degree completions, student retention, job placement and other factors have had little to no effect on associate or baccalaureate degree completions.

Follow-on funding, access to technology, talent and resources all can be barriers to commercialization and successfully spinning off sustainable companies. Always seeking a quicker, more viable path to market for technologies and products, university-based programs and public-private partnerships try to tackle these hurdles, which often times are region-specific. Such is the case in Long Island, NY, where a recent partnership between a nonprofit organization and venture capital firm is working to address access to capital concerns.

A measure to increase the sales tax in Jackson County, MO, to fund medical research across Kansas City and St. Louis was rejected by greater than a 5-to-1 ratio, reports the Kansas City Star.

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Commerce highlights university programs across the country working to facilitate student and faculty entrepreneurship as part of a larger federal effort to improve tech transfer activities and external partnerships. Information was collected from the leaders of 131 research universities to understand what universities are doing programmatically and strategically to nurture innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship.

A new statewide network will coordinate the regional economic development activities of Indiana University, according to an announcement released by the university this week. The Innovate Indiana Network will complement the work done by the Innovate Indiana initiative and the university's Council for Regional Engagement and Economic Development (CREED). The network will include representatives from 16 schools, offices and centers across the state that offer services that could potentially benefit regional economies.

Because universities are increasingly seen as hubs for regional economic development, many institutions are reorganizing their business engagement efforts to eliminate the barriers between universities and the innovation community. Recently, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan Medical School and the University of Texas at Arlington all announced plans to streamline and redesign their innovation services, aiming to increase their contribution to regional job and business creation.