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In a previous post Eyes on the Prize I said that I would elaborate on some of the reasons why innovation prizes are better than patents for African universities.

the winner gets the money faster

Prizes are given whenever a problem is solved problem or an innovation meets the criteria. At worst a successful research institution will have to wait a few months until a prize giving ceremony is held.

Compare that to one of the success stories of university patenting their research, a drug called Emtriva. Fifteen years after the patent application was filed, and after ten years, and bankrolling millions of dollars of patent litigation, Emory received the coveted payoff. That is not a worst case scenario, complex technologies take years to develop, more years to achieve market success, if they achieve it, and more years to achieve profitability, if they ever do. Ten to fifteen years to break even is regarded as normal in most industries.

But win an innovation prize and you get paid right away.

the award is worth far more than money, it also confers prestige which is very important to institutions to attract talent

Prizes are awarded for demonstrated solutions to problems.

These are either solutions which by their nature are not contestable, such as the highest prime number, or judged by experts according to pre-defined criteria. In other words they are a far more powerful demonstration of scientific excellence than the award of a patent. The South African patent system does not examine patent applications, its easier to get a patent than to publish a peer reviewed article, a patent merely indicates that you’ve paid a lawyer.
Prizes receive a great deal of publicity so that recipients and even serious competitors are profiled as leaders in research and innovation. Its the kind of publicity that money can’t buy, attracting talented students and staff.

knowing whether you have won or not in a specific time frame helps decisions to terminate research that is not going anywhere

Many prizes set a time frame. We all know that deadlines can be a powerful motivation. So can knowing that others are working on the same problem. Even when prizes don’t set a time frame if someone else gets there first that’s a clear endpoint. But even if no-one has won yet, the clear criteria of prizes make decisions about continuing investing into a particular line of research far easier than the elusive criterion that maybe one can make something that can maybe make some money.

its not necessary to go through the long, costly and uncertain process of taking a product to market

Universities in search of the legendary pot of revenue at the end of the patent rainbow eventually learn that once researchers achieve a breakthrough there is an inevitably lengthy process of filing and obtaining a patent, then, whether the university chooses to licence the patent to others for the next steps or go it alone, there is further development of a marketable product, manufacturing processes, launching the product, distribution deals, and then, if the product is a commercial success, the process may pay for itself, or, exceptionally, may yield a product. Its a process that requires a great deal of specialist management capacity, almost inevitably results in having to manage relationships with profit hungry corporations, and distracts from the mission of universities.

Win a prize and the job is done. All a research institution needs is to focus on its core competence; research.

Winning prizes doesn’t just happen though, it requires a deliberate focus, attention to incentives for talented researchers, and institutional commitment to pursuing the prize.