It’s taken as a given that universities are integral to the innovation process. Researchers create technology, the university finds a licensee or a startup company is formed to develop the invention, and products are created that drive growth in the economy.

But that is a simplistic view of a complex system. And today, a select group of researchers from around the world is gathering at U.C. San Diego to help examine the process of university-industry interaction and technology transfer in more detail. Their focus is a series of questions—that have long been asked but have yet to be definitively answered and are of abiding interest here at Xconomy: What is the true connection between research universities and innovation, and how does it work? How does knowledge really move from the academic laboratory to industry? And are there new ways to improve and accelerate the process?

Sponsored by the Kansas City, MO-based Kauffman Foundation, the seminar is intended to help analyze a global research effort focused on what industry wants from universities, and how those goals can be achieved. The research, part of an onging multi-year study, consists of interviews and other data drawn from more than 90 companies in four countries where innovation and new technologies play a key economic role: the United States, Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

“What we are trying to accomplish is for people to think about what incentivizes and supports a positive interaction between the university and industry,” says Mary Walshok, a UCSD Associate Vice Chancellor and a seminar host. The participants are “people who care about these things, and who are in a position to influence government policy in the U.S., Japan, Canada and the U.K.”

The three-day event begins with a presentation this evening by Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, which Walshok says operates as an example of university-industry “best practices.”  The invited participants … Next Page »

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Where are John and Todd? A month after Luke reported that venerable Seattle tech reporters John Cook and Todd Bishop left the Seattle P-I for new roles at the Puget Sound Business Journal, they have officially surfaced today at a new website, called TechFlash. Billed as “Seattle’s technology news source,” TechFlash will offer breaking news and analysis on the Northwest’s tech industry—from startups and investors to big companies—as well as guest columnists and interactive features.

The TechFlash site, which is run by the Business Journal, is now in beta. Senior tech reporter Eric Engleman of the Business Journal will also contribute to the site. Among its inaugural posts are a story about Bill Gates’s new holdings company (with the awful name of bgC3), and a report about a closed-door meeting held at Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group to address the economic crisis. Congratulations on the launch, gentlemen—we’ll see you out there.

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We’re Number Four. That is, in terms of concentration of technology-based employment and R&D activity in the state, Washington ranks fourth in the nation (after Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia), largely on the strength of its aerospace and software publishing industries. The concentration is defined as the number of jobs in a given sector relative to all jobs.

This stat, and many others, come courtesy of the Technology Alliance, a statewide organization of tech and business leaders based in Seattle. Yesterday the organization released the final version of its 51-page “economic impact” report—its first since 2005 and fifth overall documenting the impact of the tech industry on the state’s economy. The report was prepared by William Beyers of the Department of Geography at the University of Washington.

Before we get to the rest of the stats, I found it interesting how the survey defined the “tech industry” in the first place. For a sector to be considered high-tech, at least 14.6 percent of its workforce had to be engaged in R&D occupations—double the percentage for the state’s overall workforce.

This seems arbitrary to me (though well-defined), and it raises the question of what “tech” even means anymore. It’s getting harder to draw the line, as almost every business uses technologies such as computers and the Internet to develop or push its products. But the survey’s focus on R&D speaks to the importance of driving the next generation of technologies, and the criterion leads to such familiar tech sectors as the following (with Washington-state workforce size in 2007):

—Aerospace (78,667 employees)
—Software publishing and computer systems design (75,638)
—Business services (82,519)
—Computer and electrical equipment manufacturing (26,862)
—Internet publishers, service providers, and wireless (19,128)
—Scientific R&D (18,765)

A few more highlights, based on the 2007 stats:

—There were a total of 343,371 tech jobs, representing 11.8 percent of all employment in the state.

—The income, measured in salary and benefits, per job in technology industries averaged $117,691, as compared to the state average of $54,097.

—The tech industry generated $112.6 billion in sales, and 80 percent of those sales came from out of state (versus 40 percent of sales from all businesses).

—Taking into account “indirect impacts,” such as the purchases of goods and services related to the industry, the tech sector helped support some 40 percent of all jobs in the state.

—In terms of “technology-intensive” industries, defined as those in which more than 30 percent of employment is in R&D (e.g., aerospace and software here), Washington ranked second in the nation after Virginia. Just goes to show how arbitrary rankings can be.

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