Universities as money makers

WESTERN Australia’s four major universities will buck the trend of recent years by significantly in-creasing the resources devoted to commercialisation of their research projects.

The apparent shift in focus follows years of criticism of the major public institutions, with the universities depicted as lacking the skills and funds to commercially develop research.

In part the push toward making money from research has been necessitated by the Federal Government’s changes to funding for universities, which essentially gives bigger returns to universities with bigger sources of external income.

And, if the commercialisation model implemented by the Univer-sity of Queensland (UQ) is any indication, the move toward comm-ercialisation could yield significant returns to WA’s universities.

UQ’s focus on commercialising its research started in the early 1980s. The university is now making millions of dollars from licensing deals and the more than 30 companies it has spun-out.

Compared with UQ, WA universities are performing poorly.

Western Australian universities are earning significantly less income from licenses and have only a handful of spin-out companies compared with UQ’s 34 spin-out companies that were operational in 2002.

But where UQ has succeeded, both in securing investment funds and skilled commercial people, WA is following.

The University of Western Australia and Murdoch University have investment funds, while Curtin University is attempting to launch a fund this year.

Since Murdoch launched its Murdoch Westscheme Enterprise Partnership, a $12.5 million investment fund, 12 months ago six of a total 24 projects identified have secured investment.

But it’s not just about the money.

UQ also was successful in recruiting commercially minded people to identify research and develop links with industry to commercialise that research. 

All four universities in WA are boosting numbers to their commer-cialisation divisions in the next 12 to 18 months.

Pre-seed funds and commercially minded people are also sought by private enterprise.

The importance of pre-seed funds, like those being established within the universities, has long been discussed among industry as essential for developing a product and or idea into something marketable, and therefore attractive for seed fund managers.

The WA Government, criticised by industry and academics for not providing sufficient monetary support and infrastructure to grow WA’s knowledge economy, is currently discussing the introduction of a $5 million to $10 million pre-seed fund.

The State Government’s opening of the Innovation Centre in Technology Park late last year is an attempt to provide some expertise, however industry sources spoken to by WA Business News do not believe it will provide the management and business development skills sought by many emerging companies. 

And boosting the dollars coming back to the universities will take time, according to UWA Office of Industry and Innovation director Andy Sierakowski.

“We aim to have 40 active licensing deals by 2010, so the $400,000 we were getting in 2004 will be up at greater than $10 million,” Dr Sierakowski said. 

According to Curtin University pro vice-chancellor research and development, Barney Glover, the university will look to develop relationships with other institutions in order to boost commercialisation expertise this year.

“We are interested in joining forces with other universities or research institutions to share costs and rationalise or to explore the type of arrangement UniQuest has with the University of Wollongong,” Professor Glover said.

UniQuest, The University of Queensland’s research development company, signed a commerciali-sation agreement late last year with the University of Wollongong.

And even though Edith Cowan University is more heavily involved in social sciences, humanities, and what most people would deem ‘public good research’, the university believes it can significantly boost commercial activity.

ECU deputy vice-chancellor John Wood said the Federal Government, while pushing universities to develop good external income streams, should recognise that Australian universities have been very successful at commercialising teaching and learning services.

“I think it’s important to note that we have been leaders in growing our services internationally to the tune of $5 billion and ECU has been one of the most successful in that,” he said.

“The challenge for us is…we might not have a chip that you get a cent for every time you sell a widget but we have a different area and we will never have the activity of UQ but we have an area of strength that we can grow.”

ECU manager of comm-ercialisation Neil Grice is the sole individual responsible for commercial activity, compared with a team of 11 at UQ.

Mr Grice started his role 12 months ago but hopes to boost numbers in his department to three this year.

The university also has a commercialisation committee of nine internal and two external members. That will change this year to have more outside involvement to draw upon a bigger pool of expertise.

Dr Sierakowski also believes more needs to be done to foster a culture of commercialisation within universities.

He believes the focus for academics is to publish their work, and by doing so advancing their career, with commercialisation rarely a motivation.

“We will be looking at our HR poli-cies this year,” Dr Sierakowski said.

“How do you get to be a professor? Maybe instead of it just being about where you are published we should build in commercial incentives so that a licensing deal will bring x number of points that would be the same as being published in x journals.”

Murdoch University division of research and development director Paul D’Sylva believes academics will be able to achieve both outcomes if they are educated about the benefits of commercialising research.