When Bruce Balcom gives advice on the strategies to follow when publishing academic papers, history suggests it’s worth listening.

Balcom is the Canada Research Chair and the Director of the University of New Brunswick’s Magnetic Resonance Imaging Centre, and he’s been the author or co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications.

And he is a strong advocate of employing strategy when publishing academic papers.

“As a university laboratory, academic credibility is the most important thing you have, so it stands to reason that a healthy and prolific publication stream from the lab is also important,” said Balcom in an interview. He admitted seeking patents and grants to fund a lab are also important, but they all flow from the credibility that comes with peer-reviewed publications.

“It means the lab is internationally known and that means we get funding from others and it means that we can attract key talent,” said Balcom. “And if publishing is the most important thing, then you should figure out how to do it right.”

The evidence suggests that Balcom figured out how to publish properly shortly after he began his academic research in the 1990s, because his lab has produced a series of successes.

The UNB MRI Centre has invented a family of new methods that use MRI – a branch of science usually used for medical purposes – for the visualization of a range of materials, including concrete, polymers, composites, food materials and microporous solids. At any given time, the lab employs 20 to 25 people, and is now working on a four-year project, financed by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Atlantic Innovation Fund, to develop new and more sensitive tools for imaging rock core and petroleum samples.

In 2006, entrepreneurs Derrick and Jill Green commercialized some of the lab’s published research and the result was Fredericton-based Green Imaging Technologies, one of the region’s leading startups.

Green Imaging used the technology to make it easier, faster and more economical for petroleum companies to study rock core samples extracted during the exploration process. The company continues to work with Balcom’s lab on new techniques and products.

As he did with the initial Green Imaging technology, Balcom often publishes research knowing it will be the basis of a patent, and could be commercialized. “It gives you a good text to use as the basis of a patent,” he said. “And the solid description helps with the patent process.”

But he is also wary of what he puts in the paper, making sure not to publish too early or to reveal too much to competing labs or companies.

“We would write a paper and we would describe what we were doing and we don’t explicitly say how we would think of using it,” he said. “We don’t describe any possible business applications. We wouldn’t even describe the scientific implications – we’re not telling other research labs what we’re going to use it for.”

Balcom emphasizes that he is not a shareholder in Green Imaging, and the company and lab operate independently of each other. But by publishing a steady stream of material and delivering papers regularly, he is able to inform key industry partners about the work the company is doing.

That helps both the lab and the company. And given that UNB is a shareholder in the company, the university benefits when the company does well – and when it pays a dividend.

In fact, Green Imaging did pay its first dividend last winter. So, in a nice piece of mutual benefit, the company was able to reward the university whose lab gave the startup its start.

This article first appeared in the Autumn 2014 edition of Entrevestor Intelligence.

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