Consultation on research commercialisation

A consultation paper was released on Friday 26 February 2021 outlining the issues, missions, rationale, and design elements of a research commercialisation scheme, and invited submissions from interested parties and members of the public. Submissions closed on Friday 9 April 2021.

Who engaged?

The Department received 171 written submissions in response to consultation paper on research commercialisation. Of these submissions:

• 46 represented the views of universities or higher education peak bodies
• 45 represented the views of individual researchers
• 38 represented the views of industry or business
• 5 represented the views of research organisations
• 7 represented the views of State or Federal Government departments or agencies

The written consultation process sits alongside extensive consultation, including more than 80 roundtable discussions with domestic and international bodies.

Infographic showing success factors:

• At scale investments: government funding is at scale and sustained over longer-term horizon.
• Focused on specific priorities: commercialisation investments typically directed national priorities, where industry demand and research capability area strong.
• Industry led: entrepreneurs and companies pull ideas through the innovation pipeline rather than relying on academics pushing ideas out.
• Well-established connection between universities and industry: Collaboration between universities and industry that is synergistic and includes workforce mobility.
• Engaged research institutions: Research institutions are open and engaged with industry.

What you told us

Through the consultation process, you raised several suggestions to improve the translation and commercialisation of university research outputs. 93 submissions emphasised the importance of focusing on national priorities in driving a focus on research commercialisation, while 88 submissions endorsed a stage-gated approach to funding projects along the technology readiness level (TRL) scale.

Improving university-industry collaboration more generally was emphasised as being vital to supporting research commercialisation, with university researcher incentives and Intellectual Property suggested as key areas for improvement.

Most agreed that there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution to improving research commercialisation outcomes, and that new reforms need to be integrated across the whole research commercialisation ecosystem.

Next steps

On 2 February 2021, the Australian Government released the Research Commercialisation Action Plan, detailing the university research commercialisation package of reforms to the university research sector.

Submissions

You can now read submissions made to the consultation paper on research commercialisation.

Please note, only those who elected to have their submission made public have been provided.

Please contact the Department at rcs@education.gov.au if you would like to receive the submissions in a more accessible format.