May 2005
Friends of the College of Engineering,
A role we are most proud of in the College of Engineering at Berkeley is the contribution we make to industrial development and job creation in California and throughout our nation. A few years ago, I added up the value of all the companies our alumni, faculty, and students had helped create over the past 50 years and I stopped when the total reached a staggering $200 billion. Of course, Berkeley research has also helped save hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives, has helped us understand more about our world and our responsibility, and has played a critical role in the defense of our nation as well. In the College, we often say that one of our most important roles as faculty is to maximize the impact of our research in all of these dimensions.
One of the many ways we recognize the impact of that research is through the awarding of patents. In April, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reported its preliminary data on the number of patents it awarded to universities in 2004. For the 11th consecutive year, the University of California (UC) tops the nation. The report projects that UC was awarded 424 patents in 2004 , 289 more than second place California Institute of Technology and 292 more than MIT which ranked third.
UC is a huge university with 10 campuses and more than 120,000 faculty but I'm sure it is more than just the numbers that keep us on top. Certainly, here at Berkeley we have an entrepreneurial spirit that recognizes the commercial application of our research. This spirit is particularly alive and well in the College of Engineering. Of all the patents awarded to UC Berkeley faculty last year, 46% were awarded to faculty in the College.
Of course, patents are only one measure of the impact of our research and most often not even the best one. Many of Berkeley's most important contributions to society and to our economy have been those we have published, or those carried off to industry in the aspirations of our students. From Berkeley Unix, to RISC computing, pre-stressed concrete, the new FinFET transistor and many, many more. Berkeley's contributions to these inventions have helped inspire entire industries. I know that even today we are inventing the new industries of tomorrow in our classrooms and laboratories.
Again this year we are taking some of our top faculty 'down the road' to Santa Clara for our 5th annual Berkeley in Silicon Valley. This year's theme is Engineering a Better World: Our environment, Our health with keynote speaker John Gage. In 1982, while a student at Berkeley, John co-founded Sun Microsystems as part of a team that created open systems in hardware and software (some say it really should have been called Bun Microsystems!) John, who is now Sun's chief researcher, will be joined by six Berkeley faculty. They will make presentations on issues related to our environment and personal health, such as stem cells and the promise of regenerative medicine, engineering microorganisms to produce new medications, and how nuclear energy can provide an emission-free answer to energy problems. Read more and register at www.coe.berkeley.edu/bisv .
I hope you are enjoying the spring. Go Bears!
/rich
A. Richard Newton
Dean, College of Engineering and
the Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering
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