Two Pittsburgh-area universities rank among the best in the nation for university tech transfers, with Carnegie Mellon University coming out on top as it relates to various indexing metrics established by Heartland Forward, a nonprofit and nonpartisan advocacy group based in Bentonville, Arkansas.
"The American research university is a unique institution that much of the world has long tried to emulate," Ross DeVol, Heartland president and CEO, said in a post announcing the rankings. "Many times under-appreciated in the U.S., research universities are one of the most important knowledge assets of cities and states for economic development purposes."
For its analysis, Heartland looked to evaluate which universities are most adept at creating new knowledge. It did this by indexing each university's science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates and how those graduates went on to transfer their learnings to either new or existing enterprises. Heartland also looked at invention disclosures, the number of licenses and options, licensing incomes and startups formed from each university to compile a composite index ranking list. To a lesser extent, it also looked at citations of university articles contained in patents granted to firms and the number of STEM graduates with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and their proportion of total degrees, among other metrics.
As a result, Heartland found that CMU came in at the top of that index, ranking as the No. 1 university overall with regard to these metrics. The University of Pittsburgh came in at spot No. 21.
"It stands to reason that many of the top-performing research universities are among the elite institutions in the U.S.; however, it’s unlikely that many experts would have predicted that Carnegie Mellon University would be first," DeVol said. "The relatively small private school has a combination of top-tier computer science and engineering departments, as well as interdisciplinary research programs with a unique entrepreneurial culture and focus. Carnegie Mellon led an economic renaissance in Pittsburgh after steel production and other heavy manufacturing fell on hard times."
The University of Pennsylvania ranked at spot No. 6, the only other Pennsylvania-based university to place within the top 25 in the country, according to Heartland's findings.
"Universities with major financial success in startups or royalties from licenses underscore the value of tech transfer and its potential, and contribute additional resources to support the process," DeVol said. "We acknowledge the challenges of developing a comprehensive set of performance metrics because a single index cannot capture the nuances and unique circumstances of individual universities. However, a university that does not benchmark its position and measure changes relative to its peers will not be motivated to improve."
For the complete rankings, go here.
