Michigan's universities are engines of innovation, and thanks to programs at the three University Research Corridor institutions, companies large and small are tapping into that creative force to create new companies, new technologies, and most importantly new jobs.

 

All three URC schools have programs that connect corporate partners to university services, such as recruitment, faculty research and emerging technologies. 

U-M Business Engagement Center
 

MSU Business-CONNECT
 

Among many other activities, MSU's Business-CONNECT partners with Midland-based Dow Chemical to connect researchers at Michigan State with those at Dow. MSU is one of 14 universities Dow contracts with under a master research agreement, which Business-CONNECT administers on the MSU side. It helps projects get off the ground faster, since they don't need to reinvent the agreement with each one.

 

Most of the projects are smaller and more focused than the typical grant-funded work professors do, said Lorelei Davis, associate director at MSU Business-CONNECT. Ideas for projects can come from anywhere, although most often it's Dow researchers looking for help from MSU. 

 

"We're trying really hard to make it about the conversation with the company," Davis says. "The person at Dow and I know each other – we can call each other on the phone and talk with each other."

 

That sort of relationship has proved beneficial both to MSU, whose professors have a funding stream for their research projects, and to Dow. Dennis Guthrie, associate R&D Director for External Technology at Dow, says that MSU Business-CONNECT allows Dow to extend its research capabilities. 

 

"The interactions with MSU not only provides great technical capabilities that Dow can leverage to strengthen our own R&D efforts, but it also provides Dow with the opportunity to meet, evaluate and interact with graduate students who have the potential to become future Dow employees," Guthrie says.

WSU Front Door

 

Oil spills and heart attacks may not appear to have much in common, but a technology involving oxygen supersaturation is used in both, in a process invented at Wayne State's medical school that saturates the blood of heart and stroke patients with oxygen. Over the course of further research, Wayne State scientists discovered it could also be used to supersaturate water in oil spills and sludge ponds, allowing microbes that eat the oil or sludge to proliferate and clean the mess. A company acquired the rights to market the technology for oil spills in a process called DynamOx.

 

Wayne State's Front Door program, which helps businesses connect to research, training, technology and business development resources within the university, is working with the licensors of DynamOx to establish a Michigan location at Wayne State's TechTown incubator.
 

"A strong relationship between DynamOx and The Front Door developed very quickly, both because their clean water system originated from a WSU medical technology and because a major research focus at WSU this year is on water quality, sustainability and technologies," says Nancy Christ, director of research and industry collaborations at Wayne State. One of the first things they were able to do was have Clean Water Forever, the company marketing the DynamOx technology, attend and exhibit at the H2Opportunities water quality conference hosted by the University Research Corridor at Wayne State in September. Once they have established themselves in TechTown, they hope to connect the company with business development resources at Wayne State and also place a Wayne State intern at the company.

 

Building that relationship will create jobs, says Len Bland, founder of Clean Water Forever. 

 

"This is where job creation starts, this is how the research becomes a real life application," Bland says. "I think it's a fantastic thing … these opportunities for commercializing inventions and innovation are one of the ways to turn around the economy."