Trivia Question: How Many Universities Are There in The World?

Copenhagen—If you really want to be comprehensive when it comes to searching for a college, you’d better get cracking.

There are approximately 7,500 universities in the world, said the organizers of Copenmind, a conference here that is trying to link up universities with corporate labs. (Yet, somehow, there are probably only 372 different animal mascots.)

There are also 10,000 research institutes, such as Germany’s Max Planck Institute, which has more branches than Quiznos.

That large number in part was the inspiration for the conference. Universities employ large numbers of researchers. Yet, most of the time, the results of this research become landlocked. A person might file a paper or present it at a few conferences. When they do look for commercial partners, they often only look at regional businesses.

It’s a work in progress. For one thing, there aren’t many buyers. Most of the attendees are researchers. Intellectual property is not the easiest sell in the world. Large companies typically are somewhat reluctant when it comes to licensing technology from outsiders. Also, things coming out of labs sometimes aren’t a perfect fit. The variety can also be a bit bewildering.

University of Southampton from England, is showing off work it has done on tidal turbines and solar roofing tiles. A short stroll down the aisle brings you to Tokai University in Japan, which has a device that looks like an airplane wing. Put it on the underside of a boat and you can get propulsion from waves.

Tech transfer can be a clunky process too. Even the companies that have successfully spun out companies get their share of criticism. The Office of Technology Licensing or the OLT, one instructor at Stanford told me recently, is referred to by some as Office of Tired Losers. And these guys helped Google and Genentech.

Still, you can see the appeal. Most, if not all, of the countries in the developing world have put together programs to transfer technology out of their labs. Green tech is heavily dependent on specialized R&D.

So we shall see.