National Survey of Research Commercialisation - Australian ...

NATIONAL SURVEY OF RESEARCH COMMERCIALISATION
In February 1999, the then Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Dr David
Kemp, asked the ARC to provide him with advice on the range of incentive and culture
factors associated with effective university research commercialisation practices.
The ARC’s advice to the Minister was published in July 2000 in a report entitled Research
in the National Interest: Commercialising University Research in Australia (Australian
Research Council, 2000). The report examined the structural and cultural barriers
to commercialising university research in Australia and, in order to overcome these,
canvassed a range of commercialisation mechanisms and issues.
The report highlighted the fact that there were virtually no published data on the
activities of research commercialisation entities in Australia that would indicate their
business performance. The absence of Australian data stood in contrast to those provided
through the annual Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) Licensing
Survey in North America, a survey of technology licensing and related performance for
US and Canadian academic and non-profit institutions and patent-management firms.
In February 2000, 500 leaders from the business, government and research sectors came
together for the National Innovation Summit. The report of the Summit, Innovation:
Unlocking the Future, provided an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Australia’s
capacity for innovation (Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and
Resources, 2000a).
The report noted that, as a nation, while some of our enterprises are up with the best in
the world, our overall performance in translating ideas and knowledge into commercial
and economic gain needs to be enhanced. In addition to advocating the establishment of
more start-up companies, the report emphasised the importance of technology transfer
from research organisations to existing businesses. The report also commented that
many public sector research ideas follow the licensing route to commercialisation, which,
in the long run, rarely delivers substantial returns. By contrast, it suggested, the creation
of spin-off firms delivers far greater benefits in the long term.
In November 2000, the Chief Scientist, Dr Robin Batterham, presented the report of
his review of Australian science capability, The Chance to Change (Commonwealth
Department of Industry, Science and Resources, 2000b). The report made a number of
recommendations for enhancing the Australian science, engineering and technology
(SET) base. The Chief Scientist made a direct link between any additional public
investment that might be made in response to those recommendations and the need
for greater accountability, through a clearer demonstration of the relationships between
funding of the SET base and outcomes, which include the commercialisation of research
and its impact within the community. One of the key recommendations to emerge from
the review was that universities must introduce strategies to stimulate and facilitate
increased transfer of knowledge to business and society. Examples from the report, of
relevant metrics for measuring the success of investment in the SET base are:
the number of patents received or pending over time; and
the number of spin-offs from research institutions — for example, per $100 million
research budget per year.
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