The successful commercialisation of university research is a key role conducted by the 700+ individual members of KCA. Our trained professionals manage the relationships and are the key translation points between researchers and industry on behalf of their respective organisations. KCA launched the Survey of Commercialisation of Outcomes from Public Research (SCOPR)¹ in 2020 to fill the gap in research commercialisation data following the discontinuation of the National Survey of Research Commercialisation (NSRC). This is currently the only source of consolidated research commercialisation data from participating Australian universities. Based on our members’ extensive experience, we present three recommendations to the URC scheme committee for consideration:

1. To improve the capacity of commercialisation personnel by Implementing Recommendation 22 from Australian Office of Innovation and Science Australia report: Australia 2030 Prosperity through Innovation and establish of system wide third stream funding for supporting the development of additional commercialisation capacity and development and delivery of worldwide recognised training and support for developing best practice in commercialisation.
2. To provide funds for Pre-Seed and Proof of Concept Funding by establishing a devolved proof of concept funding scheme separate from institutional block funding, similar to the NZ Pre-Seed Accelerator Fund, to enable rapid, local decision making for advancing opportunities to the point at which they can be commercialised.
3. To align senior management with university research commercialisation activities by developing a Research Commercialisation Concordat to be adopted by university leadership, similar to the UK’s Knowledge Exchange Concordat, outlining a series of principles supporting research commercialisation.

The complete submission can be viewed via the following link:
KCA URCS Submission (pdf)