Roadmap to Guide Construction Safety Research Commercialization

There is a great difficulty for students or faculty to commercialize their novel idea or invention from the university laboratory. Traditionally, university research has not been intended for commercializing while still within the university. However, recent trends create a paradigm shift for researchers to include a business mind-set to establish technology commercialization objectives. Still, there are major gaps to the widespread adoption of the practice of commercializing university research. There has been great success in research and technologies for construction safety research, including hazard detection and monitoring, resource monitoring, preventative practices, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule checking. However, there is an overall lack of commercialization of construction safety research which prevents the widespread adoption of such safety inventions in industry. The purpose of this paper is to develop a roadmap, integrating research design and known business techniques, for the commercialization of construction safety technology research. Significantly, this paper will help guide students and faculty on a path to apply leading safety research to the construction industry, potentially saving money and lives.