The Australian Government expects universities to engage in technology transfer and commercialisation (TT&C) and almost all universities have established a technology transfer office (TTO) for this purpose. The primary aim of this research was to identify what would enhance the overall performance of Australian universities in research commercialisation and industry uptake of the university research commercialisation outcomes. Four research questions were enunciated: 1 What are the systemic barriers to research commercialisation within Australian universities? 2 How could Australian universities overcome the systemic barriers to the commercialisation of university research? 3 How, in particular, could Australian smaller and regional universities enhance their research commercialisation capacity and performance? 4 How could the uptake by industry of Australian university research outcomes be improved? Question 1 was answered using a qualitative content analysis on the substantial body of literature available. Questions 2 and 3 were answered using multiple-case analysis involving eight Australian university case studies and comparing Australian university practice with five benchmark universities two from the US, two from Canada, and one from New Zealand. The first major conclusion was that there are three essential criteria upon which university TT&C success is built: institutional and senior executive support for TT&C superior TTO management; and sufficient world-class research being conducted. The second major conclusion was that the same key criteria for success in TT&C apply across the board, whether a university is smaller, regional, technical, new or old, research-intensive or otherwise. Question 4 was answered using case studies developed on five SME companies in the electronics industry in one Australian State and comparing these results with the outcome of a narrative review conducted on the literature to permit methodological triangulation. The research found a rich engagement occurring between universities and industry, with the most important element involving individual personal relationships.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/210453 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Collier, Alan James, not supplied |
| Publisher | RMIT University. Management |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.rmit.edu.au/help/disclaimer, Copyright Alan James Collier |
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