Technology and Innovation, Vol. 18, pp. 235-244, 2017
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2017 National Academy of Inventors.
ISSN 1949-8241 • E-ISSN 1949-825X
http://dx.doi.org/10.21300/18.4.2017.235
www.technologyandinnovation.org
HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF INVENTORS
Arthur Molella
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
Although the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is still very young, it is not too soon to reflect
upon its history. It is and always will be a future-oriented organization, but history is where the
future begins. As a curator and historian of science and technology, I felt uniquely privileged
to have joined the board of the National Academy of Inventors soon after its founding. What
better way to observe in real time and to feel part of that early history (if only in a small way)?
While memories and the excitement of creation are still fresh, I asked NAI founder Paul Sanberg
to sit down with me to share his thoughts on the academy’s genesis. What follows incorporates
the results of that interview along with some historical reflections on the relationship between
invention and academia.
Key words: Invention; Innovation; American inventors; History of invention; National Academy
of Inventors; National Academy of Sciences, U.S. patents; Academic invention
no idea if anybody would come,” recalls Sanberg.
To his utter surprise, over one hundred colleagues
showed up.
Why was he surprised? As a seasoned academic
scientist and administrator, he was prepared to expect
at best indifference and at worst hostility to his call. He
was all too aware that traditional academic researchers
are often allergic to patenting and commercialization.
For some, indeed, the applications of their scientific work to the marketplace and capitalism were
anathema. “It wasn’t pure science, and, therefore,
there was some taint to it. And that was unfortunate,”
says Sanberg. In the ivory tower, even the very term
“academic innovation” can sound like an oxymoron.
Plainly, this is not how Sanberg thinks. He sees
no conflict between the search for knowledge and
THE MAKING OF AN ACADEMIC INVENTOR
Most organizations have a creation story. Written or unwritten, these founding narratives share
a common purpose of crystalizing and justifying
the organization’s ethos and goals. In the case of the
National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the story
begins with an impromptu luncheon at the University
of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, one that packed a
surprise for the academy’s founder, Paul Sanberg. It
was the surprise that launched NAI.
Early in 2009, Paul Sanberg, senior vice president
for research, innovation, and economic development
at the University of South Florida, issued a campus-wide invitation to all colleagues who had interests
in invention and held at least one U.S. patent. “I had
_____________________
Accepted November 30, 2016.
Address correspondence to Arthur Molella, Director Emeritus, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, Smithsonian Institution, NMAH,
Room 1210, MRC 604, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA. Tel: +1 (202) 633-3447; Fax: +1 (202) 633-4593.
235
236MOLELLA
applying that knowledge in the marketplace and to
the needs of society. To the contrary, he considers
the activities mutually reinforcing. But, to convince
others of this, he faced significant hurdles ahead, as
we’ll see. His own discovery of the joys of innovation
came through a circuitous route. He began his career
as a precocious but relatively traditional laboratory
scientist publishing extensively in neuroscience journals.
patenting until after I was a full professor [a rank he
achieved while still in his early thirties] and worked
with a company.” Initially, he didn’t even think about
licensing and patenting, largely out of ignorance of
what he was missing. “The University never taught
me anything about intellectual property (IP).…It
wasn’t until I went into industry for a startup at Brown
University that I learned anything about IP and why
investors care about that.” At that point, he made
an important life decision, electing to give up his
tenured position at the University of Cincinnati to
take his chances in the innovation marketplace. He
joined a startup company associated with Brown
University, where he also accepted a non-tenured
faculty appointment. It was the early 1990s, on the
eve of America’s high-tech boom, and the startup
opened a whole new world to him, a world in which
he knew he had a lot of catching up to do: “It was an
incredibly fast learning experience for me to work in
commercialization.”
Figure 1. Dr. Paul R. Sanberg in his laboratory speaking with
former Florida Governor Charlie Crist.
NURTURING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION
Sanberg immediately began applying what he had
learned from his early experiences to his work at USF,
which had recruited him in 1992 to help raise the
university’s profile as a research campus. After spending a decade building his own laboratory and center
into models of innovation, he moved into senior
administration and was able to put his ideals into
practice on a larger scale. Given his hands-on style of
scientific publication, Sanberg took for granted that
experimental research and invention were mutually
reinforcing—a belief that informed his administrative
policies at USF. He was determined not only to boost
research output but to transform the way research was
being done. In a word, he wanted to bring the whole
of USF into the world of invention and innovation.
He was fully aware that patenting had not been part
of the academic culture at USF. But, if he was going
to change things, what did he have to work with? It
was this question that led him to extend his lunch
invitation in 2009. As a result of that momentous
meeting, he knew he was not alone in his enthusiasm
for innovation. In the one hundred-plus attendees,
he found a vibrant sub-culture of colleagues at USF
who shared his passion for invention and commercialization. But, up until then, they had been working
Sanberg churned out scientific articles in neuroscience at an extraordinary pace. Blessed with a talent for
working with his hands and making things, he regularly published methods articles or included a section
in his research articles on experimental techniques,
highlighting novel apparatus he devised to “make his
research more cost effective.” Among his inventions
were novel automatic counters and printing calculators used in experiments where laboratory animals
were prompted to press on bars. “I was looking for
ways to automate and to do things less expensively
and on a larger scale,” he explained. He enjoyed showcasing his new instruments to colleagues, who were
learning a great deal from the descriptions of his
techniques. But he still didn’t think of himself as an
inventor. Then came a shift. Some of those colleagues
told him that he should make more of his work on
experimental techniques and devices. Eventually it
dawned on him that he could try to patent his new
devices. “That’s when I first felt I was being an inventor,” he told me.
Reflecting on his first brushes with invention,
he said, “I went through training as a scientist and
never learned anything about patents…. I didn’t start
HISTORY OF THE NAI
below the radar at USF and not all that effectively.
Their patents were few and far between, achieving
only limited financial success for their academic filers.
Those colleagues who were inventing did so essentially as a sideline, receiving little if any support or
recognition from the administration—least of all from
tenure and promotion committees. Sanberg judges
that this neglect was not so much out of hostility
as sheer ignorance within academic cloisters of the
bigger world of innovation. Sanberg’s non-traditional
attitudes and encouragement must have come to these
would-be academic inventors as a breath of fresh
air. Discovering the extent of this latent interest was
equally bracing to Sanberg.
Coming off that lunch meeting with renewed
enthusiasm, Sanberg began to wonder what was going
on at other universities:
We were a mid-level state university on the rise,
and if it was here, then there must be a lot more
out there…. So I talked to a number of VPRs [vice
presidents of research] and other senior leaders
at various places, and they were all looking for
ways in which to start doing what I was trying to
do [finding and supporting the early adopters].
This got him thinking about an idea for an organization that would extend beyond USF, out to the state
level and even nationally.
LAUNCHING NAI
In 2009, the U.S. economy had just tanked, he
reminds us, “and there were discussions that industry
is going to help us; the private sector’s got to be more
involved with universities.” At around this same time,
the National Advisory Council on Innovation and
Figure 2. The first luncheon of USF inventors.
237
Entrepreneurship, a group of entrepreneurs, investors,
and university leaders, was created to facilitate the
implementation of the America COMPETES Act.
They were tasked with coming up with new ideas
and providing guidance and feedback on policies
intended to spur innovation and entrepreneurship.
Sanberg recalls, “That environment, which encouraged the university to take a larger role in economic
development, had a big impact on me. My role here
in the university was to promote that economic
development and build on it. It was just a matter of
looking for opportunities….” Fortunately, he also
had the unwavering support of USF President Judy
Genhsaft and other senior administrators. Some of
those administrators—Stephen Klasko, now president
of Thomas Jefferson University; Karen Holbrook, now
president of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University;
and John Wiencek, now provost and executive vice
president of the University of Idaho—have gone on
to take the NAI to their new universities, joining as
member institutions and starting university chapters.
Within a year, he and others, including Howard
Federoff of Georgetown University, moved forward
on his concept of the NAI. He and Howard met with
Richard Maulsby of the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO) and later with David Kappos, Under
Secretary of Commerce and Patent Office Director,
both of whom supported the idea of the NAI. He
discovered there was a demand out there, not only
within USF but also around the nation.
In short, he was convinced the time had come
for a new, long overdue organization. Those entities that already existed in the area of advancing
innovation just didn’t do the job. To his mind, what
distinguishes the National Academy of Inventors
238MOLELLA
The Academy put forward a sweeping and ambitious mission. Accomplishing it, however, required
nothing less than a major cultural transformation:
“Since its founding, the NAI has played a vital role
in changing the academic culture to one of valuing
patents and commercialization within its member
institutions across the country” (2).
Figure 3. Under Secretary David Kappos, an early supporter
of the National Academy of Inventors, speaks with conference
attendees Tanaga A. Boozer (left) and Marcus W. Shute (right).
from other organizations that promote innovation,
such as the National Academy of Engineering, is the
NAI’s focus on academic innovation: “NAI focuses
on academics, and that’s what makes us unique,” says
Sanberg. “The technology people and the researchers
have their own groups, but that doesn’t reach out to
academics.”
The National Academy of Inventors was formally
launched in 2010 at an inaugural meeting at USF in
Tampa with David Kappos. Rather than retracing the
stages of the organization’s early development, which
are well documented on the Academy’s website (1),
this brief overview of the young organization’s genesis will focus rather on its founding aims and spirit,
with an eye to the key relationship between academic
research and patented innovation that the NAI was
designed to foster. Sanberg was out to change minds
and knew there was a lot of consciousness-raising to
do. But it turned out the NAI had its work cut out
for it, for the relationship between inventors and academics has a long and fraught history in the United
States, a history that Sanberg had no choice but to
reckon with.
To fully grasp what this effort entailed, it is worth
reviewing the mission statement on the Academy’s
website:
The NAI was founded in 2010 to recognize and
encourage inventors with patents issued from the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the
visibility of academic technology and innovation,
encourage the disclosure of intellectual property,
educate and mentor innovative students, and
translate the invention of its members to benefit
society.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
To effect this sort of cultural transformation within
academe was no easy matter. Understanding why
requires some historical perspective. Sanberg may
not have been aware of it at the time, but the National
Academy of Inventors was faced with bridging a gap
between academics and inventors that had bedeviled
the culture of American innovation for well over a
century.
This rift dates back at least to the formation of the
American scientific community in the late 19th century. The founders of the community were attempting
to establish their professional identities. As part of
that quest, they articulated strong ideological convictions about the relationship between science and
technology. They believed that science should not
only be valued for its own sake, as the search for
knowledge, but also as the one and true source of
technological progress.
Physicist Joseph Henry vs. the “Practical Men”
Listen to Joseph Henry (1797-1878), Princeton
physics professor, first head of the Smithsonian Institution, and one of the main architects of the American
science community:
Every mechanic art is based upon some principle [or] general laws of nature and…the more
intimately acquainted we are with these laws the
more capable we must be to advance and improve
[the useful] arts. (3)
Although he had first articulated this view as a
young scientist, he remained faithful to its spirit
throughout his life. It was a view widely shared by
peers in the scientific community.
According to this ideology as stated by Henry,
James Watt’s invention of the steam engine depended
on the heat theory of the physicist and chemist Joseph
Black, the improvement of the windmill “employed”
the mathematical calculations of the mathematician
HISTORY OF THE NAI
and physicist Daniel Bernoulli, and so on. Such
statements about the science-technology relationship are now considered a simplistic and outdated
description of a complex process. Yet, without going
into details of the shortcomings of Henry’s account, it
is fair to say that the basic notion that technological
invention depends on prior theoretical discovery has
demonstrated remarkable staying power.
It anticipates, for example, the sort of view that
Vannevar Bush of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) (1890-1974), head of American
research and development (R&D) during World War
II, put forward in his influential 1945 report to the
President, Science the Endless Frontier. Bush called for
government support of basic science as the source for
technological progress, a call that paved the way for
the National Science Foundation. The idea is taken for
granted today among many scientists and engineers.
Recently, for instance, this writer heard a high-ranking academic official at MIT implicitly affirm this
239
view. Praising the Institute’s long-time commitment
to basic science, he said that the main role of start-up
and entrepreneurial activities supported at MIT was
to take the fruits of that basic science out into the
world.
Yet, unlike today, in Joseph Henry’s time there
existed a widespread counter-ideology. The late 19th
century was the age of the independent inventor celebrated as a hero in democratic America. Theory was
dismissed as mere book learning and scientists as
wool-gatherers. The true heroes were the unschooled
‘practical men’ whose ‘Yankee ingenuity’ produced
all the notable patented inventions driving America’s
technological and economic progress.
Patenting is one of the pillars of the NAI’s mission,
reinforced by a strategic alliance, ratified in 2016, with
the USPTO. It is difficult to conceive that 125 years
ago patenting had become a major bone of contention
among scientists and inventors. While Henry and
like-minded scientists had no objections to patenting
Figure 4. Men of Progress from The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Pieced together by artist Christian Schussele from
individual portraits, the painting depicts Joseph Henry (standing at center) looking down, perhaps uncomfortably, on the white-maned
Morse sitting by his telegraph.
240MOLELLA
per se, they complained that too many patents were
wasted on meaningless gadgets made by ignorant
men with inflated egos. By no means underestimating
the value of invention, Henry himself built the first
prototypes of the telegraph and electric motor as
part of his research in electromagnetism. But they
remained prototypes, which he declined to patent,
considering it beneath the dignity of a professor
of natural philosophy (as science was then called)
to profit from invention. Particularly offensive to
Henry were inventors who exalted themselves at the
expense of scientific discoverers. One of the most
famous patent litigations of the 19th century pitted
Henry against the inventor Samuel F. B. Morse and
his business allies, whose telegraph patents embodied
broad claims about applying electrical principles to
invention. Pointing out that principles of nature are
not patentable, Henry argued the credit had been
stolen from him and, more importantly, from basic
science (Figure 4) (4).
This belief that basic science was the true mother
of invention eventually morphed into a more extreme
interpretation of the ‘pure science’ ideal—the pursuit
of knowledge solely for its own sake —that took hold
in certain quarters of American academia in the last
quarter of the 19th century (5).
While this version of a pure science ideology
implied an isolation of science from technology, the
connection was still maintained through a sort of
trickle-down effect, by which the chain of invention
could be traced back to an initial scientific discovery.
As we’ll see in a moment, some scientists took the
more cynical view that, in some cases, inventors stole
from scientific discoverers for financial gain.
Henry Rowland and the Ideology of Pure Science
In 1883, the Johns Hopkins University physics
professor Henry A. Rowland (1848-1901) penned
what became the classic statement of the purity ideal
in an article titled “A Plea for Pure Science” (6). “I
have often been asked [he writes] which was the more
important to the world, pure or applied science. To
have the applications of science, the science itself
must exist.”
Much of the rest of the article rehearsed Joseph
Henry’s litany of complaints about injustices inflicted
on scientific discoverers. Rowland writes, “And yet it
Figure 5. Henry Rowland and his Dividing Engine. From Popular Science Monthly, 1903.
is not an uncommon thing, especially in American
newspapers, to have the applications of science
confounded with pure science; and some obscure
American who steals the great ideas of some mind
of the past, and enriches himself by the application of
the same to domestic uses, is often lauded above the
great originator of the idea, who might have worked
out hundreds of such applications, had his mind
possessed the necessary element of vulgarity.”
His article then argues for the purity of the academic calling, objecting to those science professors
who engage in consulting or “devote themselves to
commercial work, to testifying in courts of law, and to
any other work to increase their present large income.”
Ira Remsen’s Johns Hopkins Lab: Patents
Unwelcome
Chemistry professor Ira Remsen (1846-1927),
Rowland’s Johns Hopkins colleague, provides a dramatic example of pure-science ideology in action.
Like many American chemists of his era, he received
his Ph.D. in Germany, where he had imbibed the
ideology of pure science. When he accepted a professorship at Johns Hopkins in 1876, he brought these
convictions with him, establishing the nation’s first
academic research lab in chemistry.
In 1878, Remsen invited into his lab Constantin
Fahlberg, a Russian post-doctoral student, to work
with him in the study of compounds of coal tar, a
viscous by-product of converting coal into coke. One
day, after leaving the lab for dinner without thoroughly washing his hands, Fahlberg discovered a
sweet tasting substance on his fingertips. Suspecting
where it had come from, he immediately rushed back
HISTORY OF THE NAI
to the lab and began tasting the chemicals in all his
beakers—miraculously not poisoning himself in the
process. Sure enough, one of them contained the
sweet substance he was seeking—a classic instance
of serendipity. He and Remsen (whose name was
included as head of the lab) then published a joint
article on the synthesis of the new substance. In 1884,
Fahlberg went on to file for patents in the U.S. and
Germany, calling the new substance saccharin and
launching a lucrative business in sugar substitutes.
Arguably, a university lab is prime territory for
such serendipitous discoveries, as free-ranging basic
research would seem to multiply the chances for the
unexpected to occur. University administrators today
would celebrate and capitalize on such an accidental
invention.
Not so Remsen, however. The Johns Hopkins
chemist was furious that his former postdoctoral
assistant had filed for patents without his knowledge
and, even worse, claimed the discovery was his alone.
Remsen’s anger at being slighted was understandable.
But that was not the only reason for his ire; rather,
as a devotee of pure science, he disdained industrial
chemistry and commercialization in general. Much
less did he want his own laboratory sullied by an
association with patents (7).
Ironically, almost exactly one hundred years later
(1981-1983), Paul Sanberg was a post-doctoral Fellow
at Johns Hopkins University. Traces of Remsen’s dim
view of patenting still lingered. In a recent letter to
Sanberg, Solomon Snyder, the eminent Johns Hopkins neuroscientist who mentored him at Hopkins,
detected welcome signs of change: “Congratulations
on your elegant PNAS [Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences] article on incentives for inventors. Historically—at many universities, including
Hopkins—faculty who patented and commercialized their discoveries were denigrated rather than
celebrated. Fortunately, this is no longer the case at
Hopkins and most other universities. Hopefully, your
piece will help change thinking in academia” (8).
Academics Go to War
This brief historical excursion into the 19th century
illustrates the changing fortunes of the relationship
between academic science and invention. The pure
241
science mentality—albeit in a less extreme form—
certainly has not disappeared from the U.S. academic
scene, as Paul Sanberg discovered. But its popularity
had begun to fade with events in the early 20th century, as America entered World War I and the nation
turned to scientists and engineers for help, inviting
them out of their academic enclaves. Under President
Woodrow Wilson, scientists and engineers were officially recruited to the war effort. Josephus Daniels,
Secretary of the Navy, set up the Naval Consulting
Board headed by America’s most famous inventor, Thomas Edison. The Board brought together
“luminaries in the realm of science and technology,”
applying theory and experiment to invention (9). At
the same time, the National Research Council was
set up under the auspices of the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) to offer Wilson advice in the national
crisis (10).
This trend of applying science and engineering
knowledge accelerated during World War II, known
as the “physicists’ war” because of the success of the
Manhattan Project, bringing together academic and
industrial scientists. This combined effort of academe, corporations, and government resulted in the
rise of Big Science, the systematic and well-funded
application of research to technology that became
the template for modern R&D.
The application of scientists to war efforts has
deep roots in American history. In the midst of the
Civil War, the NAS was signed into law by President
Lincoln (March 3, 1863). The NAS was “charged with
providing independent, objective advice to the nation
on matters related to science and technology.” The
plan was to enlist science in aid of the Union cause
(11). Although responding to many government
requests for reports on military and civilian matters in the post-Civil War era, by the 1890s, the NAS
was called upon for advice only infrequently and fell
into a torpor. It devolved primarily into an honorific
organization, remaining that way until revived and
pressed again into public service during World War
I, when it became an active scientific body, a status
it has retained ever since.
At first glance, in its mission to honor scientists
and serve the public, not to mention its very name,
the NAS looks like it might have been a direct model
for the National Academy of Inventors. When asked
242MOLELLA
if it was, however, Sanberg hesitated and said, “No,
not originally. It was not at first a central focal point
for me, perhaps from being trained in Canada and
Australia. When I became a senior administrator, we
were looking at metrics to become a better university…. One metric was: How many National Academy
members does that university have?”
DEMOCRATIZING INVENTION
Although NAS’s high-powered membership did
inspire his and Under Secretary Kappos’ idea of having elite NAI Fellows, Sanberg departed significantly
from the National Academy model in other ways. In
its early years, the NAS was criticized as elitist and
undemocratic (12). Whether or not it actually was,
Sanberg was determined to break the mold: “The NAI,
from its inception, has been expansive and inclusive,
truly democratized,” he said. He points out that all the
national academies—the NAS, National Academy of
Engineering, and National Academy of Medicine—
only have individual members. By contrast, he said,
“We wanted to make the NAI as prestigious as the
NAS as far as the kind of people we have in it, especially at the Fellow level, but make it a different kind
of academy, one that also has universities….The NAI
is universities, it’s individuals, and it’s very high level
people in the Fellows program....” That expansive view
is reflected in the 757 NAI Fellows, the 215 member
institutions, and the 3,000 individual members who
represent over 250 institutions worldwide (as of January 2017).
One of Sanberg’s major aims has also been to
drastically increase female participation in invention and innovation. “All the national academies are
doing everything they can to make up for the past
and bring in more women as academy members and
as a percentage of the workforce. At the NAI, we
have the advantage of being a start-up organization,
not weighed down by our history. And, we’re highly
motivated toward change. We are making tremendous strides in acknowledging the role of women in
our enterprise—inducting women as Fellows and as
NAI members. To see this, all you need to do is look
at photos on our website of the NAI annual meetings, group photos of our decision-making board
members, and our incoming class of Fellows.” This
commitment has also been evident in the T&I journal’s publication of pieces addressing the gender gap
Figure 6. Several NAI Fellows from the 2013 class (from left to
right: Samir Mitragotri, W. Mark Saltzman, Joachim Kohn, Cato
Laurencin, Edith Mathiowitz, Kathryn Uhrich, Laura Niklason,
and Marsha Moses).
in the innovation space, including a forthcoming
special issue (13-15).
Traditionally, the national academies “are tasked
to answer questions from Congress, the White House,
and various government agencies. We haven’t fully
developed that aspect yet at the NAI.” It is clear,
though, Sanberg would welcome a wider government advisory role for NAI, a role that supports his
values of public service. Accordingly, Sanberg and
members of the NAI board are now actively lobbying
for a Congressional charter (16) for the organization to give it more of a government service function
comparable to the national academies. In the future,
Sanberg would also like to work more closely with
other national academies in shared areas of interest,
a natural overlap given that many of the NAI Fellows
are also members of other national academies.
LOOKING AHEAD: TEARING DOWN THE
BARRIERS
In a way, the current enthusiasm, even craze, for
innovation that began in the early 1990s makes an
organization like the NAI almost inevitable. Today,
knowledge and institutions of every kind are linked to
the innovation ethos. Universities have had a special
relationship with high-tech regions ever since Stanford spawned Silicon Valley in the late 1950s. It is a
model emulated around the world. Tech corridors
and their equivalents would not be what they are
without the knowledge base provided by academia.
Nevertheless, universities serving as technology hubs
are still in the minority.
While great institutions like Stanford, MIT,
and Berkeley dominate the landscape as regional
HISTORY OF THE NAI
technology hubs, Sanberg believes there is plenty
of room for growth elsewhere. He reveals this was a
major consideration behind the establishment of NAI:
“You didn’t have to be a Harvard or Stanford to do this
kind of work. Every community in this country needs
to be helped by an ‘ivory tower’ institution that could
look outside and interact more with the community
to create start-up companies, do research with companies, and get the country going and flowing. And
not just with giving more research grants. Let’s get our
faculty communicating. We need to train the faculty
as well as students (who I think push the faculty)—
with student companies, student incubators, and so
on. The NAI promotes this sort of training.” This
kind of activity fosters a higher level of community
engagement and spurs economic development, both
of which are paramount to the modern university’s
mission.
It is an interesting paradox that—despite the
manifest importance of research at colleges and
universities to technological innovation, industry,
and the economy—obstacles to academic innovation
remain entrenched in some institutions and in departmental enclaves. A restrictive vision of the academic
calling is clearly one of the reasons behind this. As
for commercialization, resistance within university
administrations to patents began to fade decades
ago when state and federal funding began to dry
up. Congress increased the incentives for academic
patenting with the passage in 1980 of the Bayh-Dole
Act, which gave colleges and universities the rights
to products from their government-funded research
projects. The only conspicuous obstacle has been in
the area of faculty buy-in.
Despite the inevitable pushback, Sanberg remains
committed to his goal of the cultural transformation
of academia:
To change the culture of universities so they recognize that academic invention is important and
part of their mission. Culture is changing vis-à-vis
promotion and tenure, for example. You won’t
probably make big money out of it as faculty, but
you still get credit for it.
Not that Sanberg, an eminent neuroscientist in
his own right, means to question the importance
of pure research. In light of today’s insistent push
toward a culture of innovation, he understands why
243
some academics might be hypersensitive to perceived
challenges to the values of unfettered research. He
fully appreciates a value system in which uninhibited academic inquiry is considered a non-negotiable
right, critical to the free flow of scientific information
and the diffusion of knowledge and experimental
findings. All the apparatus needed to sustain this
flow—journals, letters, on-line exchanges, professional meetings—are deemed equally vital to the
enterprise.
Sanberg feels that no one should feel his or her calling is at risk. On the contrary, he is at pains to avoid
any hint of threat. He argues instead for a broader
perspective—for opening up space in academe for
both pure and applied activity at the expense of neither. Those who are so inclined (as he is) are welcome
to do both. In the end, as he points out, nothing is
lost intellectually. In fact, there is everything to gain:
“We know that those faculty that are high achievers
in academic invention are even higher achievers in
academic research.”
The benefits of breaking down the cultural barriers
between pure and applied research are obvious to the
members of NAI. The advantages are also validated by
history. At one time, American scientists were criticized, if not dismissed, by many historians of science
for being mired in the everyday and the practical—
especially when compared with European greats,
from Newton to Einstein. It turns out, however, that
Newton was interested in the theory of ship-building
and that Einstein, besides earning a living in the Bern
patent office, had approximately 50 patents to his
name, including one for a safer refrigerator. As Harvard science historian Peter Galison argues, in fact,
Einstein’s revolutionary insight into the relativity of
time emerged from his experiments using telegraphs
to coordinate clocks in train stations (17). History
shows that, far from being handicapped, American
scientists have benefited from their abiding interests
in things practical and even commercial (18). America’s unequaled bounty of Nobel Prizes testifies to the
country’s lasting contribution to knowledge. Practical
problems stimulate the imagination, require creative
problem solving, and provide research opportunities
all but indistinguishable from scientific problems. The
dichotomy between pure and applied has lost almost
all meaning. High-tech innovation, in biomechanical
engineering, for example, is as much science as it is
244MOLELLA
technology. It is key to many improvements to the
human condition, both in society at large and individually (in prosthetics, for example). Such innovation
speaks to our whole being and responds to society’s
intellectual, economic, and even spiritual needs. The
marriage between invention and theory has already
conferred uncounted benefits.
The National Academy of Inventors’ boldly ecumenical philosophy raises a pressing question: Is it
time to finally tear down the cultural barriers between
science and invention and between academia and the
broader community of innovation? For Sanberg, the
answer is a resounding yes.
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