UA posts invention statistics

After last year’s record number of intellectual property disclosures, researchers with the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville tallied 43 such disclosures in the 12-month period that ended June 30.

The total was two fewer than in fiscal 2013.

“Although the number of invention disclosures for fiscal year 2014 decreased from the previous year, researchers at the University of Arkansas were able to create ground-breaking innovation with fewer available grant dollars,” said Susie Engle, commercialization manager for University of Arkansas Technology Ventures, in an email.

In an interview, she clarified that such grant dollars are crucial to funding research at the university. The university earlier this week disclosed to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette the total research expenditures showing a decrease of 1.47 percent for the most recent fiscal year compared to a year earlier.

The intellectual property disclosures, sometimes referred to as invention disclosures, this past fiscal year included bio-medical inventions, inventions related to the power grid and nanotechnology to improve mechanical devices, Engle said.

“The more research dollars that come into the university, the more inventions are created, and when those inventions are disclosed to our office, it assists to grow economic development in the state of Arkansas and provide more jobs,” Engle said.

Of the disclosures this year, 24 came from the main Fayetteville campus and 19 were from the UA Division of Agriculture.

“What you’re seeing is that Division of Agriculture employees across the state are coming up with good inventions that are worth pursuing,” said Lisa Childs, the division’s assistant vice president for technology commercialization.

She said she compared UA to similar schools using data from a survey done by the Association of University Technology Managers based on fiscal 2012 reports. In an email, Childs wrote that UA rated well in what are known as “active licenses,” or licenses that generate income, even though the university’s research expenditures were below that of peer southern land-grant universities.

Agriculture inventions may involve new ways of harvesting crops, for example, or probiotics and vaccines for chickens that could eventually have expanded uses, Childs said. Other areas of research include water quality and ways to make better use of agriculture-related waste.

“Agriculture touches every part of your life, so we have inventions that touch every part of your life,” Childs said.

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