Hello team!

We are in need of your help.

KCA is an association built on the good will and efforts of countless volunteers.  This humble association has been around since 1978 (yes really), and has grown over time thanks to professionals who generously give their time to pitch in, get their hands dirty and bring people together to make things happen.

KCA has reached a point in its journey where it needs a resurgence of volunteers to take it the next step and to help it grow and evolve into an association for the 21st Century.  We need all kinds of volunteers with all different experiences and skill sets to drive activity and to steer the overall direction, so no matter where you are at in your innovation adventure, there is likely to be a group or a committee that could benefit from your pearls of wisdom and the aid of an extra pair of hands.

We have multiple committees that you may wish to help out on:

Advocacy Committee

Do you love working in tech transfer? Do you want to see better translation of research outcomes, and improved mechanisms to facilitate this process? Do you want to build a personal brand amongst your peers, be a key influencer and try to improve the commercialisation landscape for yourself and your colleagues nationwide?

Then join the KCA Advocacy Committee, have your say, and be an integral part of bringing about change to our sector. The Advocacy committee aims to further KCA’s advocacy efforts and together enable us to achieve common goals. Working together, we hope to improve the funding landscape, raise the profile of the great work that our professionals do and influence policy makers to help bring about greater translation of research.

We are in need of to leaders, visionaries, influencers, movers, shakers and those who just generally give a damn about improving the state of our sector to make this happen. Already on board are members from the KCA Executive – Rob, Jan, David and Kevin – so you won’t be alone.  The more people we get involved, active and contributing to this group, the better chance we have of our making ourselves heard and getting results from our efforts.

Join the team and help bring about change!  Expressions of interest can be made here.

Conference Committee

The 2015 KCA Annual Conference will be in Melbourne, Victoria in early September.  It is important that we have new and engaging content presented each year, and that we offer a dynamic and informative program for attendees.  We had some great suggestions put forward at the 2014 conference – we just need a team now to help pull all the thoughts and suggestions together and turn those ideas into a live event.  If you’d like to be part of the 2015 organising committee, please let me know.  Contributors will be eligible for a free pass to the annual conference as thank you for their efforts.

Expressions of interest can be made here.

Industry / Investor Committee

Do you recognise the need to attract fresh sources of investment and partnership to accelerate commercialisation in Australia? Do you want to be a key player in bridging the gap between research, business and investment? Do you want to provide your office and your peers around the country with more opportunities to network and engage in a meaningful way with potential partners?

We are looking for well-connected ideas people who are keen to get their hands dirty to join our new Industry and Investor Engagement Committee. Lead by Rohan McDougall from Curtin, the industry and investor engagement committee will aim to initiate forums that can act as a focal point for establishing partnerships between public research institutions and specific industry/investor groups.

The idea is to bring everyone together to make it easier for industry and investors to engage with us and to make us more tempting to those who may not typically like to interact with us. Aggregated critical mass of the university sector is an attractive value proposition to industry and investors, providing access to a broader pipeline of deals and opportunities.

If you are keen to get involved, please express your interest here.

Regional Committees

The Regional Activity movement which launched in 2013, aims to provide members with a localised platform from which they can launch and drive initiatives that would benefit from members working together collaboratively. It aims to foster closer ties amongst regional professionals, increase collaboration, and achieve the needs of local members as a collective.

Over the last twelve months, thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, we have begun to see a bit of local activity in a few of the states.  These groups have been trying to champion local engagement, and to help drive local activity. It has up to them to guide the program to ensure activity is relevant and meets the needs of the local market; thanks to their efforts, KCA is growing into a member driven association, and returning value back to the member base.

This initiative would not be possible without the dedication and drive of the volunteer representatives from KCA member offices around the country who make up these groups. We thank them for all of the hard work that they put in.

If you would like to become a volunteer yourself, we always need more helpers so please just let us know.

Professional Development Committee

The Professional Development Committee is a hands-on group which is responsible for guiding the KCA professional development program, and for developing and writing content to be delivered to educate other professionals in future training programs.  They are currently busy developing the structure and writing content for two new courses to be ready for delivery in 2015 – a licensing and business development course.

If you would like to become a volunteer on this committee, we will require more helpers in 2015 so please holler!