Tuesday 25 November 2008

Enhancing Australian Universities’ Research Commercialisation Performance

A PhD student sponsored by the AIC has recently been awarded his doctorate in the School of Management at RMIT in Victoria .  Dr Alan Collier examined the topic ‘Enhancing Australian Universities’ Research Commercialisation Performance' as part of an Australian Postgraduate Award – Industry, in which the AIC was the industry partner.

Universities have a key role in generating the ideas that advance economic prosperity and social benefits to the community. The recent world-wide availability of Gardasil, a discovery by Professor Ian Frazer at the University of Queensland which helps prevent human pappiloma virus and consequent cancers, is one prominent example. With the Australian Government spending about $3.5 billion on university research each year, the AIC and RMIT saw value in supporting research to identify enhancements in this ideas flow.

The research examined the issue from two principal perspectives: what qualities are possessed by universities that make them successful in commercialising their research; and how does Australian industry (mainly SMEs) absorb knowledge from universities?

Universities were examined by developing case studies of overseas and Australian universities and using these to identify the characteristics possessed by universities that commercialise research effectively. Essentially, universities that successfully commercialise research exhibit three particular qualities: senior university management that clearly supports commercialisation with tangible and moral support; an excellent commercialisation team, in particular a commercialisation director with entrepreneurial ability; and the university undertaking research with world-wide commercial potential.

As known globally, the Australian experience was that while research commercialisation may return some financial dividend to universities, this is generally quite small (typically less than 3% of a university’s research budget). Rather, commercialisation represents another effective way for universities to diffuse their knowledge for the benefit of the community as an adjunct to their traditional role.

It was found there are differences, too, in the way regional universities interact with their community compared to that of metropolitan universities. Generally, regional universities emphasise commercialisation approaches such as consulting and contract research instead of patenting and licensing of technology, and start-up companies, although the same commercialisation success factors were at work in all types of universities. It was also found that a university’s approach to commercialisation reflected its particular different culture, research profile and experience, , so that it was not possible to devise a general prescription for all universities on how to handle commercialisation.

From the perspective of Australia ’s high-technology SMEs, the research found that these companies had a rich engagement with universities, although this was rarely, if ever, through the commercialisation office. Instead, SMEs relied heavily on personal interactions, and chose to deal with university researchers on reputation and ability in preference to location or institutional reputation. It was found that every one of the case study companies interacted with university researchers but, rather surprisingly, most of these were with universities located in regional areas, or were interstate or overseas. Proximity was not a key issue for SMEs when working with preferred university researchers.

The research also found that the Australian environment was reasonably supportive of university research commercialisation, although not significantly different to that found in other jurisdictions. It suggested that the principal role of government was the construction of a workable common infrastructure, comprising elements such as investment in basic research; tax policies affecting corporate R&D and investment spending; the supply of risk capital; aggregate level of education in the population; pool of talent in science and technology; information and communication infrastructure; protection of intellectual property; and openness to international trade and investment. An effective common infrastructure, in conjunction with universities meeting the three key factors identified earlier should form the basis for Australian universities to succeed in research commercialisation. 

The AIC’s CEO, Dr, Rowan Gilmore, commented that the findings were consistent with international evidence and the AIC’s own dealings with Australian research organisations and SMEs. He said that although commercialisation was sometimes perceived to be peripheral to a university’s mission, the research showed that in fact it was an important mechanism for industry engagement and knowledge diffusion. He congratulated Dr. Alan Collier on the quality of his research and ongoing contribution to the sector.

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