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The University of Utah ranks among the top 10 U.S. universities in several key research commercialization measures, based on data from the AUTM 2025 Annual Survey.
Research commercialization moves discoveries beyond the lab and into the world through products, treatments, services, licenses, and startups. The U’s performance is especially notable because it is achieving results comparable to larger research institutions while operating with a smaller research expenditure base, a sign of the strength and efficiency of Utah’s innovation ecosystem.
The U placed among the nation’s leaders in five key measures:
- No. 5 in invention disclosures: New discoveries submitted by faculty, researchers, and students for potential protection or commercialization.
- No. 5 in licenses executed: Agreements that allow external partners to use or commercialize university-developed technologies.
- No. 4 in copyright licenses: Licenses covering software, data, educational materials, creative works, and other tangible property.
- No. 9 in gross license income: Revenue from licensing activity, including royalties and equity-related returns.
- No. 3 in new licensed technologies: Technologies licensed to external partners for the first time.
A growing pipeline, built for impact
The survey results highlight both the U’s current performance and its potential for continued growth. The university’s research enterprise is expanding, creating a larger pipeline of discoveries with the potential to reach the marketplace and benefit the public.
As research activity grows, it can generate more ideas, invention disclosures, partnerships, licenses, and startups—strengthening the U’s ability to shape industries and improve lives.
“These benchmarks reflect the strength of the University of Utah’s innovation ecosystem and the faculty, researchers, and partners who help move discoveries toward real-world impact,” said Jason Young, senior director of commercialization.
The AUTM survey results add to a series of national recognitions for the University of Utah’s innovation ecosystem. The U has also recently been named among the top 100 universities globally for U.S. utility patents, No. 1 for producing unicorn founders, and recognized as one of the nation’s top universities for biomedical innovation. Together, these distinctions reflect growing momentum across the university’s innovation pipeline.
That impact can be seen in examples from the past year:
- Propelling clean energy: Geothermal Strategy Partners helps developers plan and build next-generation geothermal projects.
- Helping bones heal: The CoAptix S system keeps steady pressure on healing bones, helping reduce complications and support recovery.
- Improving EV charging: Grid Elevated’s IntelliCharge platform uses AI to balance charging demand, helping make EV infrastructure more reliable, efficient, and scalable.
- Fighting brain cancer: CaLycia Bioscience is developing engineered immune-cell therapies designed to target aggressive brain and spine cancers from within.
What the results mean for Utah
For faculty and researchers, the results point to more opportunities to translate discoveries into practical applications. For industry partners and investors, they signal access to a strong environment for bringing research discoveries to market. For the state, they demonstrate the University of Utah’s growing role in building Utah’s innovation economy.
As the U’s research enterprise expands, so does its capacity to turn discovery into public benefit, economic growth, and solutions to pressing challenges. The 2025 AUTM survey results show that the university’s commercialization efforts are already performing at a national level—and are positioned to make an even greater impact in the years ahead.
FrostByte Defense Technologies, a company founded by University of Utah researchers and built on U research, is gaining statewide recognition for its approach to preventing frostbite in extreme cold.
The company recently won first place in the Consumer Products & Lifestyle category at the Utah Business 2026 Innovation Awards and also took first place in the event’s Speed Pitch Competition. Earlier this year, FrostByte also won the Legacy Grand Prize at the University of Utah’s Bench to Bedside competition.
For co-founder and CEO Jakob Travis, the recognition is helping validate both the technology and the business model behind it.
“These recent awards are great recognition for us,” Travis said. “They help validate a lot of our thinking about the market and build momentum as we move toward commercialization.”
A New Approach to Cold-Injury Prevention
FrostByte is developing a lightweight glove liner designed to protect people working, serving and recreating in extreme cold. The system monitors tissue temperature and biometrics, then autonomously triggers targeted emergency heating when the wearer is at risk of frostbite.
That approach addresses a major limitation of traditional heated gloves: battery life. Rather than heating continuously, FrostByte is designed to activate only when needed, helping extend battery life while protecting the fingers and hands most vulnerable to cold injury.
The product has the potential to extend battery life by up to 50 times the current standard, while addressing frostbite cases that can result in serious injury, including amputation.
The goal is to move cold-weather protection from passive insulation to active prevention.
From U Research to Field Testing
FrostByte grew from a multidisciplinary University of Utah collaboration. Co-founders Jakob Travis, an electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. candidate; Scott McIntosh, MD, MPH, a professor of emergency medicine and wilderness medicine expert; and Jacob George, Ph.D., director of the Utah NeuroRobotics Lab, combined clinical protocols with embedded electronics. Their glove liner monitors tissue temperature and automatically heats at-risk areas in high-stress environments.
FrostByte gained early support through High Tech West, formerly the RAC Grand Challenge, the U’s R&D pitch competition for national defense, aerospace and medicine in complex environments. Its 2024 win provided $100,000 to move the technology from concept toward prototypes and commercialization.
Since then, the team has built multiple prototypes at the U and tested them with Special Forces personnel in Fairbanks, Alaska, at temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The tests generated performance data and user feedback under the conditions the product is designed to address.
A pilot grant from the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health is supporting more severe cold-weather testing this winter. Recent engineering updates have reduced the technology’s footprint by about 50 percent as the team works toward ruggedization for extreme military specifications.
Looking Ahead
As FrostByte advances toward commercialization, the team is focused on manufacturing partnerships, materials development and additional field pilots. The company is seeking connections with local and international manufacturing partners, material science experts, clothing manufacturers and occupational groups interested in testing early devices in cold-weather environments.
For the Technology Licensing Office, FrostByte’s progress shows how university research can move quickly when technical expertise, clinical knowledge and entrepreneurial support come together around a clear real-world need.
Learn more about FrostByte Defense Technologies. Researchers interested in commercializing University of Utah innovations can connect with the Technology Licensing Office.
Water challenges are growing across Utah and the Mountain West—but so are the opportunities for research and innovation to make a difference.
At the Technology Licensing Office’s Sept. 15 Tech Tuesday, researchers, industry experts and community leaders came together for a conversation about the future of water technology, from PFAS treatment and water reuse to commercialization and industry collaboration.
The panel featured Dr. Ling Zang, professor of materials science and engineering and associate dean for research in the University of Utah’s Price College of Engineering; David Cumming, chairman of the Cumming Foundation and co-chair of the Great Salt Lake Alliance; and Dr. Saroosh Mortazavian, environmental engineer at Carollo Engineers. Dr. Marian Rice, director of the Peak Water Sustainability Engine, moderated the discussion.
Solving the whole water problem
One theme emerged early: promising technologies need to address more than one piece of the problem.
Zang pointed to water reuse as a major opportunity for Utah and discussed his team’s work on PFAS—often called “forever chemicals.” Many existing treatment technologies can capture PFAS, but that can simply move the contaminants from water into filters, resins or other waste streams.
The bigger opportunity, he explained, is developing complete treatment approaches that can both remove and destroy contaminants, while potentially making the treated water available for reuse.
That systems-level thinking is increasingly important as researchers look for solutions that are not only effective in the lab, but sustainable at scale.
Design with the end user in mind
For researchers developing new water technologies, Mortazavian emphasized a practical lesson: talk to end users earlier than you think you need to.
A technology that performs exceptionally under controlled laboratory conditions still needs to work with real-world water conditions, existing infrastructure and regulatory requirements. Utilities also need evidence around reliability, cost, scalability and waste management before considering a new technology for full-scale implementation.
Those questions, Mortazavian suggested, should help shape the research itself.
Zang reinforced the point with a simple example: a material might remove nearly all of a contaminant in a laboratory experiment, but if it takes several minutes to produce a cup of clean water, it may not meet the needs of the eventual customer.
The gap between good science and a useful product can be significant—and understanding the user can help close it.
Commercialization requires more than technology
Cumming brought the conversation to the business side of innovation.
Moving a technology from a university laboratory into widespread use requires researchers and entrepreneurs to think about commercialization early—including intellectual property, company formation, investment and the purchasing cycles of potential customers.
Those timelines can vary dramatically. A farmer may make purchasing decisions on an annual cycle, while a water utility could be considering equipment designed to operate for decades.
Understanding when and how customers spend capital can be just as important as understanding what problem the technology solves.
Cumming also emphasized the value of building a connected water innovation ecosystem across universities, industry, investors and other organizations. Rather than duplicating resources, stronger partnerships can create a more continuous pathway from research through validation, funding and ultimately deployment.
Turning conversation into collaboration
The discussion also highlighted the role regulation can play in accelerating innovation. New requirements can create demand for technologies that help utilities and other organizations meet emerging standards—but successful implementation still requires researchers, engineers, technology developers and end users to work together.
And that collaboration was already happening at Tech Tuesday. Rice noted that conversations at the event had generated new connections and plans for follow-up discussions between researchers working on related challenges.
Key takeaways
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Start with the end user. Talk with utilities, industry partners and customers early to understand the evidence they need before adopting a technology.
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Think beyond removal. Effective water treatment should consider the full lifecycle of contaminants and avoid simply transferring a problem into another waste stream.
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Plan for implementation from the beginning. Reliability, cost, scalability, waste management, infrastructure and regulation all matter alongside technical performance.
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Understand the market. Customer purchasing cycles and access to investment can strongly influence how quickly a technology reaches the real world.
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Collaboration closes the gap. Researchers, engineers, industry, investors and commercialization partners each bring resources needed to move innovation from the lab toward impact.
Tech Tuesday is the Technology Licensing Office’s regular networking series bringing together innovators, investigators, industry partners and other stakeholders from across campus and the broader community. The series creates a space to share ideas, build connections and explore pathways for University of Utah innovations to make an impact beyond campus.
