If beverage companies make money by selling drinks, courier companies make money by delivering express delivery, and Internet companies make money by click-through rates...then how does the laboratory make money?
1.
In top research universities, the salary paid by the school is very small. For example, in the medical schools of Harvard and Columbia, RMB 100 is required to be funded by individual projects. Pay. Therefore, university professors here are more like Entrepreneurs/entrepreneurs. In addition to completing a gradually decreasing proportion of teaching tasks, formulating budgets, raising funds, building teams, and using funds for academic research often become their main tasks. ("Popular Science: How to Apply for Scientific Research Funding in the United States") In the medical field, NIH-National Institutes of Health is the main source of funding.
Just as employees are promoted through performance appraisal, the academic circle also has its own promotion system. There are three main types of professors in American universities—assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors. Under normal circumstances, you have to obtain a doctorate and conduct postdoctoral research for several years before you can be hired as an assistant professor. After serving as an assistant professor for about five years, he will undergo a rigorous review process to obtain associate professor qualifications. It is not difficult to evaluate associate professors, but it is very difficult to evaluate full professors. They must not only have outstanding scientific research achievements, but also be well-known in their field. The papers and works published based on the project are the hard indicators for judging ability and level. ("Professional Evaluation and Recruitment in American Universities: Focus on True Talent and Emphasis on Democratic Evaluation", "Professional Evaluation and Recruitment in American Universities: Emphasis on Quality, Not Quantity")
According to common sense, good scientific research design and It can be considered a successful laboratory if the project applies for scientific research funds, establishes its own research group, and publishes multiple high-quality papers to gain professional titles and academic influence. But in a big industry where there are strong players and strong players, academic research can only account for 1/3 of the entire laboratory's main business.
2.
Cooperation with enterprises is the second main way to obtain funding sources other than professional scientific research funding institutions.
The cooperation between enterprises and university laboratories is essentially based on enterprises as the main body, with enterprises proposing market demands, research and development projects, and raising funds, while laboratories take advantage of resources such as talents, disciplines, and experimental conditions to Achieve complementary and win-win results.
The goal of applying for scientific research funds and conducting academic research is mostly to clarify a scientific mechanism or to demonstrate the principle feasibility of a new method, without paying much attention to its practical feasibility. Commercial R&D is committed to producing profitable products, so it needs to consider many aspects that do not need to be taken into account in academic scientific research. (Lao Bai, "From Academic Research to Commercial R&D: The Experience and Summary of an R&D Director") Compared with applying for academic R&D funds, it is naturally more difficult to obtain cooperative investment from enterprises, which is another way to verify the strength of the Lab. A good remedy.
3.
University scientific researchers who can successfully establish cooperative relationships with enterprises are often very good at applied research and providing new technology solutions. These new technologies have paved a third source of funding for large laboratories—utility model patents. ("The Difference between Utility Model Patents and Invention Patents")
Once a patent is successfully applied for, most laboratories often choose to establish a startup to focus on completing the market transformation of this scientific research result. In this part of the business, angel investments, venture capital, etc. have become the third type of "shareholders" of the laboratory. ("Research on the relationship between the publication of papers and patent applications by Chinese scientific researchers---taking the Chinese Academy of Sciences as an example")
According to British media reports, this source of wealth was rarely seen by Chinese people ten years ago. In recent years, with the development of the economy, more and more Chinese investors have gradually become aware of the hidden business in this laboratory, and want to use a large amount of money to get a share of the American innovation field. ("British Media: Chinese companies invest heavily in US laboratories to obtain patents")