Even Small Businesses Can Tap Into World Class Scientific Research. Here’s How:
Take a look at any breakthrough technology and invariably it started out in a lab somewhere, usually decades before any commercial product hits the market. The problem is that, with tens of thousands of scientific papers published every year, it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.
That’s why major corporations spend billions on research and development, invest in academic partnerships at top research universities and send their scientists and engineers to conferences around the world. Everybody’s looking for that one obscure discovery that can lead to a hit product that can win in the marketplace.
Yet what few realize is that small and medium sized businesses can play this game too. Researchers want their discoveries to find useful applications, federally funded science is generally published openly, and there are a number of programs that are designed to help entrepreneurs navigate the scientific world. They key is to show a real interest and engage.
Tapping Into Local Universities
Wherever your business is located, chances are you are less than an hour’s drive from a university where significant research is taking place in a wide variety of technical areas such as chemistry, engineering and computer…
