RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES are the world’s great venture capitalists for investments in human capital—that is, knowledge. Harvard enrolls thousands of students, each of whom is a “project.” Students acquire human capital, an asset that they turn to account as scientists, composers, financiers, politicians. Harvard also supports thousands of studies, each of which is also a “project”—an analysis of Bach’s compositions, an investigation of poor families’ expenditures, the mapping of the human genome. Like venture capitalists, research universities have the expertise to recognize projects with huge potential—the ablest students, the best experiments. Like venture capitalists, they not only fund projects but guide them and match them with specialized resources. Like venture capitalists, they retain an “equity share” in their projects—though they do this in a special way.
To read the full, original article click on this link: The Venture-Capital University | Harvard Magazine Sep-Oct 2011
Author: Caroline Hoxby
