A report on university commerciallisation in Australia has found that university commercialisation activities are mostly an exercise in cost recovery with insufficient deal flow to support large Technology Transfer Offices.

 

The report was independently commissioned by Murdoch University and produced by a consultancy group with a view to investigating the current commercialisation practices and typical outcomes within Australia’s universities.


Other key observations from the report include:

• Successful commercialisation requires a large pool of high quality, commercially relevant research;
• Public sector intervention in research direction and commercialisation is both a blessing and a curse;
• There is a university spin-out culture in Australia because of companies being created to optimise the commercial return of university generated intellectual property and grant programs requiring a project to be owned by a corporation rather than a university;
• The primary long term goal of all commercialisation functions should be financial self-sufficiency; and
• Creating and maintaining an effective relationship between the research community and the commercialisation office is key to an effective commercialisation function, technology transfer officers should have appropriate commercial backgrounds, empathy towards university systems and formulate a client service culture for the benefit of the researcher.


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