Sunday 14 February 2010
Commercialisation Australia and the Australian Institute for Commercialisation – What’s the difference?
Google the word “commercialisation” from anywhere in the world, and the top two entries will be Commercialisation Australia and the Australian Institute for Commercialisation (AIC).
Alas, we Australians are not global leaders in commercialisation, perhaps just savvy users of the Web (benefitting from different spelling to the Americans).
Commercialisation Australia (CA) and the AIC are both national and both are involved in commercialisation. So what’s the difference then between them?
Although we can definitively explain what the AIC does, we have to read between the lines to describe CA since it is not yet fully operational, and suggest how it will be different from the AIC.
A very important difference is that the AIC is a national institute, whereas CA is part of the Australian Government Department of Innovation, Industry, Science, and Research. The AIC is an established not-for-profit company reporting to an independent board, and serves its clients by offering commercialisation and innovation services, many of which are paid for through programs offered by a variety of governments (including the Australian Government). Broadly speaking, those services help increase innovation in a firm, research organisation, or new business either by providing (i) professional development skills, (ii) advice and consultancy to bring new products to market, or (iii) services to help build collaborations with other firms or researchers that result in new products, services, or markets, particularly along industry value chains.
On the other hand, CA is funded through the Federal Budget, receiving $196.1 million to 2013, with ongoing funding of $82 million per year after that. Much of that funding will find its way into the hands of researchers, entrepreneurs and innovative firms to develop new products and skills. The grant funds come with Case Managers and Volunteer Business Mentors to advise or mentor the firm. This is intended to quickly weed out ugly babies and the walking dead, enable collection of performance data, and ensure money is transferred with experience.
The grant funds can be used to purchase specialist advice and services (such as those offered by the AIC) to boost skills and knowledge (up to $50,000 on an 80:20 basis); to engage an experienced CEO or other executives to provide management expertise (up to $200,000 over two years on a 50:50 basis); to develop a proof of concept to test the commercial viability of the business model of an idea for a product, process or service (between $50,000 to $250,000 on a 50:50 basis); and an “Early Stage Commercialisation component” to enable a new product, process or service to be developed to the stage where it can be taken to market (repayable grants on the success of the project offered between $250,000 -$2 million on a 50:50 basis). Funding is awarded through a competitive, merit based assessment process and the applicant must have ownership, access to, or the beneficial use of the intellectual property.
Commercialisation
So how, then, is the AIC different ?
Clearly, because of the grants, CA will be a magnet for every inventor, entrepreneur, research office, and small innovating firm in
Firstly, the AIC will continue as an independent thought leader in commercialisation. We will maintain that position to influence government policy. For example, our success in pioneering and then facilitating demand pull commercialisation by bringing SME’s to the researchers’ doors (through our ground-breaking TechFast program) has now been institutionalised by all state governments and the Australian government in their own innovation suites (e.g. Researchers in Business Program).
Secondly, the AIC will continue to provide services, whereas CA provides grants. AIC can provide active assistance to commercialise products and services, while CA provides the money. In addition, the AIC is geared to continue to come up with new and pioneering innovation services, such as our forthcoming crowd-sourcing service, to tap into the latest trends in open innovation and commercialisation around the globe.
Thirdly, to access CA funds, co-investment is required. If firms and their ideas are not attractive to private sources of capital, the AIC is able to help improve their pitch to such sources, and to improve the quality of their commercialisation plans, for instance by including professionally sourced market research.
Finally, the AIC’s client base extends beyond start up companies that require seed capital. Many of our clients are in fact mature companies motivated by the need to innovate to rejuvenate their growth (for instance, in our Innovation Coaching Service), or are established firms wanting to enter new value chains or enter into new collaborations (as facilitated by our promising new TechClinic™ initiatives in sectors that are as diverse as clean energy storage to tropical food processing). Other AIC clients include large corporations that want professional assistance in commercialising their internal IP. These clients can play an important role on the “demand” side of commercialisation.
One thing is certain. We at the AIC will work closely with CA, sharing the top spot on Google and sharing clients so they benefit from commercialisation thought leadership, ground-breaking AIC services, and have access to the funds they need to develop.
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