National Survey of Research Commercialisation - Australian ...

1. INTRODUCTION
Throughout Australia, in our universities and research institutes, researchers are
generating new ideas. In partnership with commercial and investment managers, legal
professionals and companies, they are turning those ideas into new products and services
that are finding success in the market and generating and sustaining new industries.
These products and services are enhancing the quality of life in many spheres. They are
contributing to better health outcomes for individuals, providing superior consumer
items, offering more powerful means of manipulating and communicating information
and supporting environmentally sustainable energy production.
This report presents, for the first time in Australia, a comprehensive survey of patenting,
licensing and start-up company formation associated with these commercial activities. It
also compares the extent of these activities in Australia with that of activities occurring in
Canada and the USA.
The report presents detailed statistical findings from the National Survey of Research
Commercialisation conducted by the Australian Research Council (ARC), the National
Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Commonwealth Scientific
and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 2001. The methodology used is based
on the annual licensing survey conducted in the USA and Canada by the Association of
University Technology Managers (AUTM).
The report also presents product success stories that highlight the impact that a sample
of the commercial activities is having, or will have, on our daily lives.
It is important to note that the ARC and the NHMRC, unlike CSIRO, are funding bodies,
and do not hold the intellectual property rights arising from the research they co-sponsor
with universities and medical research institutes. These rights are held by the universities
and medical research institutes, which operate according to national guidelines for
managing intellectual property.
THE POLICY CONTEXT
In December 1998, the Health and Medical Research Strategic Review concluded that
the future of health and medical research in Australia will require the establishment of
a “virtuous cycle” of Government investment, links between publicly funded research
organisations and the commercialisation of findings through industry. The Review report
(Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, 1999) noted that Australia can
point to a number of successful commercial ventures, such as Biota and ResMed, arising
from health and medical research, but also a number of missed opportunities, such as
colony stimulating factors and haemachromatosis genes, discoveries from which the
value was not captured for Australia.
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