At a growing number of companies, the search for innovation now leads beyond their own R&D departments and past the labs over at the competition, or in startup companies. Instead, they’re looking to an old source that’s gotten newly aggressive in pitching its intellectual property: academia. It would seem a win-win situation. Companies get access to all sorts of promising discoveries; universities get a revenue stream to support research and education. But big-company dealmakers need to be realistic about what they can and can’t hope to find on campus.
