Fourteen startups were spawned from technology generated at Carnegie Mellon University in the fiscal year that ended in June, school officials said yesterday.

CMU-generated Startups
FISCAL YEAR	STARTUPS
2004	4
2005	8
2006	14

Ten of the startups are located in the Pittsburgh region, with another settling in nearby Cleveland, said Robert A. Lowe, director of enterprise creation at CMU's Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation.

Despite CMU's noted strength in computer science and robotics research, the firms were created from technologies that run the gamut, including medical devices, robotics, gaming, chemistry and software.

The latest fiscal figures mark a record number of companies spun out from CMU in any one year, Dr. Lowe said. Eight startups were spawned in fiscal 2005 and four in fiscal 2004.

He attributed the near doubling in startups in the past year in part to "Enterprise Creation," a program launched in the past year this year to assist faculty and researchers interested in turning their research into a marketable product or company.

The program taps into state and foundation dollars to provide services that include market research, prototype development and creating a business plan.

In some cases, CMU works alongside state-funded economic development group Innovation Works to help launch a firm, as it did with Bossa Nova Concepts, a robotics toy company started this year by CMU doctoral student and inventor Sarjoun Skaff.

"It makes the [startup] process less unfamiliar for faculty, so they understand how it works," Dr. Lowe said.

Faculty members and researchers also are thinking more entrepreneurially and becoming more comfortable with the process of commercializing their research, he said, adding that it helps that researchers see colleagues launching their own companies.

CMU has boosted the number of startups generated despite spending about the same on research and development activities -- about $225 million from public and private sources -- each of the past three years and despite a drop-off in the number of inventions reported by university researchers -- 113 in the most recent fiscal, vs. 132 in fiscal 2005.

In addition to more startups, CMU in the past year also saw an uptick in dollars earned from licensing technology developed at the university to established firms and startups, to just above $6 million, up 44 percent from fiscal 2005, Dr. Lowe said.