United States
Malcom Turnbull is pursuing universities to turn research ideas into cash as part of his innovation agenda for Australia. Today it was announced that the Prime Minister has called a meeting on Friday aimed at finding more ways to drive industry collaboration with Universities.
Previously, the government has included incentives to push researchers in co-operative research centres to focus more on commercial outcomes. For example, through the ‘Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre’ chaired by former IBM Australia chief executive Andrew Stevens and ‘The Innovation and Collaboration Centre’ co-founded by UniSA, Hewlett Packard and the South Australian Government. However, despite this, when compared to other countries our researchers are not transferring to a commercial environment.
Mr Pyne, the Science and Innovation Minister, stated that there needs to be a cultural shift in Australian researchers. According to Mr Pyne, many researchers believe that, “once your research is done your job is done” and ignore the commercial possibilities that come after that. This is reinforced by the fact that only 4 percent of our researchers in public institutions are involved in business. With the Turnbull government’s innovation agenda creating positive buzz around Australia, it will be interesting to see how the government plan on turning research ideas into cash and commercialising the process.
Certainly, time will tell how the government plans on increasing the Australian landscape to be more innovative and collaborative. Those invited to Friday’s innovation meeting have been told little about the agenda, which is expected to be open and informal. Is it just a matter of including more generous tax breaks and incentives, or a matter of a simple culture shift?
