A half-century of innovation initiatives in higher education has produced new institutions, identities, and even a new language among other breakthrough discoveries. It also has created a set of myths, including the fallacy that universities make innovators.

You may have heard colleges pitch themselves as “talent pipelines” set on cultivating new generations of scientists. While education is an important component of innovation, the record of universities acting as incubators is mixed. Further, technology companies create a new challenge by increasingly relying on students to perform research and development under the label of training programs.