The University’s Billion-Dollar Blind Spot: Why the Arts and Humanities Are Left Behind
Do the Arts and Humanities Add Value To The University?
As an Artist, I Say They Don't (But Could)
TL;DR
Universities are uniquely positioned to foster bold, experimental ideas in the arts and humanities, just as they do for STEM disciplines. However, the arts and humanities are underfunded and constrained by outdated models that prioritize tradition over innovation. To address this, universities should create actionable pathways for commercializing cultural projects that are ready to be brought to market, much like tech transfer offices do for STEM. These initiatives can include interdisciplinary collaborations, business education for creators, and evergreen funding models to sustain cultural innovation. By integrating the arts into the broader innovation and economic development ecosystem, universities can unlock their economic and cultural potential, making them vital contributors to a sustainable and interconnected future.
Who Cares If We Listen?
While working at Princeton, composer Milton Babbitt wrote a seminal (and polemic) essay, “Who Cares if You Listen?”. In that essay, he argues that the university should be a haven for advanced and experimental research, offering a space where creativity and innovation can thrive without the pressures of immediate practical (i.e. “commercial”) concerns. In his view, focusing on the commercialization of the work (i.e. connecting the work with an audience in a way that generates economic returns), naturally results in a cheapening, rather than advancing the work–and, by extension, cheapens culture itself.
This mentality has been the prevailing attitude toward academic work in the arts and humanities at American universities. Faculty have been free to experiment with their work without any commercial pressures and to encourage their students to do the same—which has led to a legacy of artists and scholars with no practice of commercializing their work. While this freedom has led to a number of exciting theories, it is difficult to argue that it has led to the advancement of culture. Instead, the practice of insulated experimentation has led to scholars and artists exchanging ideas amongst themselves and dissertations living on dusty shelves in library basements. In other words, the ideas of the academy never reach the public.
That is not to say that the public never interacts with cultural production. Outside of academic walls, the public interacts with music, art, and even ideas conceived and produced through for-profit entities. This generates “accessible” work that often lacks the rich research and experimentation that is happening at universities.
This has led us to our current state of arts and culture, where arts and humanities programs are scrutinized, underenrolled, defunded, and removed from universities. Meanwhile, for-profit art making feels repetitive, repackaged, and out of touch with audiences. On one side of cultural production, we have ideas that are not generating economic returns; on the other we have ideas that feel old, stale, and desperately in need of a makeover. It is difficult to argue for the university to continue supporting practices that provide no return to the university and that often leave students in an arguably worse financial position than when they started their studies. That said, the arts and humanities programs at universities have enormous potential to support cultural innovation and create sustainability for the field, if we actually start caring who listens and how much they are willing to pay for it.
Why STEM Brings Value to the University
We know that university programs in the arts and humanities have this potential to generate economic and social returns because we have seen this potential realized across campus in our STEM fields.
STEM fields have been enjoying increasing popularity (and funding) for decades now, largely driven by the fact that this investment of resources generates economic returns for both universities and their students. This is because the university is federally incentivized to commercialize innovation.
The 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, sponsored by Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole, mandates that universities retain ownership of research, invention, and technology developed through federally funded research, fostering commercialization and technology transfer. Many universities have capitalized on this opportunity by building “tech transfer” offices to help researchers bridge the gap between their work and potential markets. These systems incentivize STEM research with the goal of finding commercial applications and generating returns that fuel further innovation.
This system is not perfect. The majority of patents generated at the university do not yield significant financial returns, and some researchers criticize the Bayh-Dole Act for disincentivizing research that could benefit segments of society but is unlikely to lead to high profit margins. However, it has created many mutually beneficial opportunities for researchers to secure funding to advance their work—and for their work to benefit society at large rather than remaining in the lab. The returns to the university generated by the successfully commercialized technology are then able to support future research. And, in theory, tech transfer offices can also include work that is not likely to yield major economic profits. This, of course, requires careful and thoughtful balancing of needs and resources of the entire university community. While this practice is not as ideologically pure as Babbit’s separation between research and commercialization, it is enormously effective in fueling research in areas that affect the public at large.
Why don't we have “Tech Transfer” for the Arts and Humanities?
We know that work in the arts and the humanities has the potential to generate economic returns—often with significantly less upfront costs than science and technology. We only need to point to the most recent billion-dollar entertainment franchise, bestselling book, and beloved repackaging of musical to see that the return on investment in the arts can be incredibly fruitful (and in some instances, just as high as it is in technology.)
That said, the university has not historically claimed ownership over copyright (the primary form of intellectual property generated through the arts and humanities). While, on the surface, this may seem like a benefit to the artist and scholar who are allowed to maintain ownership of their copyright, it also means that the university is not incentivized to provide additional funding to these fields. This means great ideas—ideas that are capable of both impacting society and generating economic returns—never have university support to find their audience and commercialize.
What We Could Do Differently
Artists and scholars would likely push back against the university owning the copyright to their work. However, this should not be of concern. We do not have to abide by Bayh-Dole legislation to set up similar infrastructure around our work. Universities do not need to own intellectual property in order to fund it and benefit from its returns. By setting up a simple revenue agreement between the university and the artists and scholars who own their IP, the artists and scholars can maintain ownership of their copyright while the university can give grant dollars towards creative research and development with an eye towards commercializing the work once its ready for production. To extend the comparison further, universities can empower the production of culture with similar accelerator and incubator programs that are already built for STEM.
By creating a ubiquitous language between IP in arts and humanities and IP in STEM, we can break down silos that have hindered research and development across academic institutions while empowering collaboration between STEM and arts and humanities. Here are a couple examples of what these projects could look like.
New Opera and Musical Productions: A composer teams up with theater students and a business school team to develop a multimedia opera/theater production. Beyond live performances, the production could be adapted into an interactive streaming experience monetized through subscriptions and merchandise. Partnerships with streaming platforms also could ensure a global audience and recurring revenue streams.
Video Games as Educational Tools: Writers, visual artists, and computer scientists collaborate to create a narrative video game that integrates augmented reality elements. With university funding, the game is marketed to schools as an educational tool, with licensing fees generating steady revenue. The university also establishes workshops for future creators, further expanding its role in the gaming industry.
Film Design Innovations: Engineers and artists work together to create new methods for simulating realistic and sustainable materials in digital visual effects. These techniques can revolutionize the film industry by reducing waste and energy use during production. Universities collaborate with animation studios or production houses, licensing these innovations to improve digital media practices while promoting environmental sustainability.
We do not have to “cheapen” our work by selling out or creating merely for profit. Some of the most influential scholars and artists have changed policies and shaped the world precisely because their work was made commercially available. Ironically, much of the innovation studied in universities as paradigms of artistic innovation has lasted the test of time largely because they were well-commercialized. Consider Death of a Salesman, which holds up a crushing mirror to American ideals, or Pixar’s CGI Animation developed by Ed Catmull at University of Utah, which revolutionized digital animation. These innovations, widely seen and discussed, have influenced the exchange of culture and have impacted the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Instead of letting work gather dust on academic shelves or serve as fodder for insular debates, universities can lead the charge in letting these ideas can thrive in broad, global markets—where the act of sharing humanity creates channels for nuance and understanding across cultures.
What Needs to Change
For this vision to succeed, artists and scholars must be equipped with tools to navigate the commercial side of their work. Universities have long provided STEM researchers with pathways to turn their innovations into viable ventures through structured support systems. Yet, we have built a world where creators in the arts and humanities are not given the same business tools and training, leaving them dependent on intermediaries who can dilute their vision and take disproportionate control. This creates a cycle where artists must continually seek new projects and rely on limited early-stage funding or unsustainable returns.
By integrating business, finance, and intellectual property management education into arts and humanities programs, universities can empower creators to maintain agency over their work while exploring commercial pathways that do not compromise artistic integrity. Universities can also foster partnerships between business students and artists, mirroring STEM lab models in which students get course credit for experiential learning on faculty research and development.
Accelerators will play a key role in this, offering structured programs where artists develop entrepreneurial skills, refine strategies, and pitch their ideas to stakeholders. Imagine an MBA student collaborating with a filmmaker to build a production company or a composer partnering with an economics student to develop a commercially viable opera franchise (not dissimilar to Richard Wagner’s success in the 19th century).
Additionally, transitioning historically philanthropic dollars into a sustainable evergreen funding model will be transformative. While some reinvestment mechanisms exist in STEM fields at Ivy League universities like Yale University and state-based universities like the University of Michigan, a comparable model tailored to the arts and humanities would provide artists with the resources needed to develop their work while reducing universities' reliance on federal/state, donor, and tuition income—slowly replacing these revenue streams with revenue from university-grown creation.
What Are the Returns?
Investing in cultural IP could revolutionize the arts and humanities and push university economics forward. By diversifying revenue streams beyond endowments and tuition, universities could create a more sustainable financial model in the arts and humanities. Just as importantly, this shift would integrate the arts and humanities into the broader innovation landscape of the full campus, showcasing their value as dynamic contributors to economic and cultural vitality. Such a transformation could also rebuild public trust in higher education by demonstrating its relevance to the broader public who could benefit from the work done at the university. And this trust needs to be reaffirmed for a reason. If we are to receive federal funding akin to STEM, it is the height of privilege to think that the public should support work that has no intention of ever making it back to the public in any meaningful way. Our return on investment must be both economic and societally meaningful—and both rely on “caring who listens.”
Who Is This For?
This vision is not for everyone. It’s not for artists who do not want to put their work through a commercial pathway or for artists and scholars who believe that the university’s role is to insulate them and their research from broader global markets. It is not for practitioners who are devoutly anti-capitalist, and it is not for scholars who believe that the university should exist solely for experimentation, divorced from the practical demands of the world outside of the university’s walls.
It’s for artists, scholars, and humanitarians who are tired of endless, oversaturated grant applications, waiting for intermediaries to greenlight their projects, and struggling to find sustainable pathways for their work. It is for artists and scholars who believe that their work creates value and that this value should be shared between themselves and their university ecosystem. It’s for those who believe in their ideas and want to share them with the world on their terms.
In Conclusion
We have the tools to achieve this vision, and the steps are straightforward. Applying a STEM-like approach to the arts and humanities would mean that we:
Build Bridges: Foster collaboration between arts, humanities, and STEM disciplines, creating interdisciplinary innovation hubs.
Educate Artists and Scholars: Provide essential skills in business, finance, and IP management to empower creators.
Incentivize Funding: Motivate universities to allocate more resources to arts and humanities research through revenue-sharing agreements.
Break Dependency Cycles: Move arts and humanities away from reliance on endowments, tuition, and traditional philanthropic funding models.
Strengthen the Ecosystem: Position the arts and humanities as vital contributors to the economy alongside STEM.
The arts and humanities enrich everyone, but not everyone is a professional artist striving to make a living from their work—and that’s a reality we must acknowledge. There is profound beauty in creating art for oneself or pursuing research purely out of intellectual curiosity, unburdened by the constraints of funding models. Yet, it is naive to assume that all creators, scholars, and university programs can sustain their work indefinitely without considering financial viability. Passion alone does not pay the bills, nor does it ensure the longevity of artistic and academic disciplines.
Most professional artists and scholars are deeply committed to their ideas and eager to share them with the world. We don’t strive to operate from a scarcity mindset; we want a field that thrives on innovation and possibility. And no artist or scholar I know views their work as luxury rather than a necessity—we aim to be visionaries, shaping culture and infusing the economy with a much-needed dose of humanity.
As an artist, this is the world I want to help build. I envision universities fostering the next generation of filmmakers, musical theater writers, fashion designers, architects, and scholars with the same strategic vision and precision they apply to technological innovation. By doing so, we move beyond theoretical commitment to the arts and humanities and toward a tangible, sustainable framework for cultural innovation—one that ensures creative disciplines are not just preserved but positioned to thrive for generations to come.
Frances Pollock is a composer by trade and the founding partner of MOC Innovations—a venture studio that incubates, accelerates, and invests in art and entertainment. She writes primarily for the stage and currently has operas and musical theater performed all over the country. Recently her work could be seen at San Fransisco Symphony, Opera Grand Rapids, Greenville Light Opera, Kaufman Center, Chicago Lyric, Seattle Opera, Chautauqua, Opera Omaha, Aspen Music Festival, PROTOTYPE, and others.
She is currently completing a doctorate at the Yale School of Music. At Yale, Frances is also the founder and lead for the Arts Track at the Yale Innovation Summit as well as a Venture Advisor at Tsai CITY. When she is not writing theater, she is directing and producing it. Frances is a proud investor in early stage work and is always enthusiastic about finding ways to bring the arts and humanities closer to the innovation space.
