Engagement Metrics and Honeycrisp Apples
Yesterday I talked with the University of Minnesota Student Senate about our Public Engagement efforts. I told them that the U has struggled to find a small number of representative metrics for engagement, and has decided on three: citizen satisfaction (from an annual survey), intellectual property commercialization, and student participation in public engagement activities (from a biennial survey of graduating seniors).
One of the student senators asked why intellectual property commercialization was one of the measures. I told him that the university's role in job creation and the economic development of the state was validly considered an important aspect of engagement. As luck would have it, I was able to illustrate the point with an unusual example: the Honeycrisp apple.
As related in a U of MN news release, "The Honeycrisp apple, developed by University of Minnesota researchers and introduced to the public in 1991, has been named one of 25 Innovations That Changed the World." The choice was made by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) in their Better World Report. The Honeycrisp is in honorable company: the other 24 include Google, the V-chip, and the nicotine patch.
The story goes on to say
...AUTM points out that the Honeycrisp's contributions go well beyond flavor. Upper Midwest apple growers were faced with tough times in the '80s and '90s, as apples from Washington state and overseas were dominating the market, and locally grown apples were, at times, being sold for less than they cost to produce.Honeycrisp came along in the early 1990s as a premium apple at a premium price (often retailing for $2.50 a pound), but orchards found that the public was hungry for the apples and willing to pay the price, and their profits rose accordingly. The report notes that one third of the growers for Pepin Heights Orchard Inc. went out of business during the '90s, but those who switched to Honeycrisp apples are now doing well.
Contribution to the economic well-being of growers and their employees is indeed a valid measure of public engagement.
Comments
Apples as an Example of Commercialization of Intellectual Property:
A metric of the U’s success
Breeding new apple varieties for release is a direct connection between our Land Grant University, the land, the people of the state, and local economies. It is true that commercialization, such as the public release of the Honeycrisp apple, has been a boon to the Minnesota apple industry that endures to this day.
However, releasing the new “star” apple varieties is not the same in 2006. Instead of the public release, an “exclusive” licensing agreement is being used to increase the revenue to the University and uphold the quality of apples in the market, among other things. This is the first time the UMN has not publicly released its apple varieties. The economic climate at the University has changed since Honeycrisp was publicly released in the early 1990’s, with apple breeding programs receiving less and less public funding. As a result the University needs more royalties from future big apple releases.
This new exclusive approach, where one company holds the national distribution rights, is being put to test on an exciting new apple variety, called 1914. One license holder will control the national supply, distribution, and marketing of 1914.
UMN Patents and Technology Marketing (PTM) wrote and signed a contract that confers no particular advantage to Minnesota wholesale apple growers. The Minnesota Apple Growers Association position is that this will severely harm their industry.
As a public research University, does the U have an obligation to consider the needs of Minnesota growers before growers in other states?
Additionally, does the U have an obligation to consider the unintended consequences of its action on Minnesota growers, such as potentially causing harm to Minnesota’s wholesale apple industry?
If commercialization of intellectual property is to be a metric of the University’s success, then scholarship should include University impacts of this new exclusive license on independent Minnesota apple growers. Commercialization may not be workforce or industry neutral—and when it is not, we should consider the impact on Minnesota businesses.
Posted by: Kathy Draeger, UMN Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships | April 10, 2006 04:32 PM