Finding and filling the gaps in the Australian governments\u27 innovation and entrepreneurship support spectra

A national innovation system is concerned with the full process of converting new knowledge into commercially viable results. Governments are policy-active in trying to create productive national innovation systems. This paper reviews ways of thinking about entrepreneurship as the commercialisation component of Australia&rsquo;s innovation system. The paper explores the impact and relevance of selected existing Australian Commonwealth, and to a lesser extent State government, programs for the commercialisation channels so identified, using four frameworks for the analysis: financial, management/start-up, innovation and entrepreneurial. The analysis indicates program initiatives covering the later development and commercialization phases, but serious gaps in the support available for the entrepreneurship phase involving the act of new entry. This gap is covered by research provider business development people and to a limited extent by incubator and State government initiatives. A critical issue has been and is access to smaller amounts of seed finance. The critical human component is the education of public servants and politicians about the nature and operation of entrepreneurship.<br /

Australia\u27s strengths and weaknesses in technology transfer and R&D exploitation : GEM survey "experts" views compared with public policy and other published data

There has been increasing public debate in Australia in recent years about research culture in universities and other publicly funded research agencies such as CSIRO and its impact on Australia\u27s performance in generating economic, social and environmental benefits to the Australian community from the large amount of public funding for R&amp;D. This is the supply side issue. On the demand side there is equally concern about the technology absorptive capacity of Australian. business as illustrated by the low proportion of gross business research expenditure (GERD) spent by business (BERD). Against this background, this paper has explored the views of abut 100 &quot;experts&quot; interviewed in the Australian Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) studies in the years 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 on the issues, strengths and weaknesses of Australia\u27s technology transfer performance as it applies to new technology small firms. The paper has also explored evidence for any longitudinal change over this period.<br /

Technology absorptive capacity, knowledge transfer and commercialisation: traps and success factors

New knowledge as such has no value until it is applied. The objectives of this paper relate to the processes involved in the application of new knowledge for such value-adding applications. The constructs involved include knowledge itself, knowledge transfer, technology diffusion and technology absorptive capacity for existing companies and the critical factors in establishing viable and high growth new spin-off ventures. The key success factors that have been identified are few: careful selection of new business and commercialisation channel, adequacy of resources available initially, and effective planning supported by established commercial competence

The importance of identifying and quantifying benefits from research commercialisation and technology transfer

Abstract not available

Commercialisation of public agency research: an overview

Abstract not available

Revisiting commercialisation incentives to academic researchers

No abstract available

An Australian model for spin-off companies in the commercialisation of university and other public sector research

This thesis has reported one of the first Australian studies of the role of spin-off companies (as a sub-class of New Technology Small Firms) in the commercialisation of university and other public agency research outcomes. The literature and other initial research included a review of the definitions of innovation and entrepreneurship constructs, a survey of Australian universities to create a database of Australian research provider spin-offs and university attitudes to research commercialisation through spin-off companies, and review of the literature on the evolutionary theory of innovation, the economic contribution of small business and the relevance of entrepreneurship and its related constructs in technological innovation. The new research involved twenty case studies in Australia and two in Scotland of the genesis and early stage development (up to first external equity investment) of spin-offs from universities and other public research agencies. The focus has been on companies established mostly in the period FY1990-2000, where there had been ongoing intellectual property, usually equity and occasionally staff transfer relationships with the parent research provider. The companies were theoretically sampled to ensure a wide cover by technology and type of research provider. Data collection involved a comparative data survey instrument based on the Klofsten Business Platform and Cornerstones. For 17 of the cases, these responses were amplified by qualitative research interviews with scientist inventors, managers, technology transfer staff and first equity investors. The main research finding was that many of the spin-off companies from the universities were similar - in terms of needing holistic analysis strategies and of a non-linear development process - to other opportunity driven entrepreneurial new ventures. However there was also a group of spin-off ventures, including all the spin-offs from Cooperative Research Centres and CSIRO, which were carefully selected, planned and well resourced by their parent research provider before their incorporation. These companies resembled Bhide’s class of corporate spin-offs and matched the Degroof and Robersts Comprehensive Selectivity and Support archetype. This latter group generally showed a linear development process and the need for a more reductionist analytical approach. It was difficult to identify an entrepreneur as such for these companies. As a research discipline for this group, technology management and new product development constructs were probably more relevant than entrepreneurship constructs. An additional finding of importance for the development of research provider commercialisation policies and practices, was that in all except one of the cases studied the trigger that led to the identification of a commercial opportunity happened internally in the research provider organisation. In many of the cases, the trigger was based on prior knowledge of a problem looking for a solution

Use of actor-network theory to develop a holistic view of new technology-based small firm development

Case study data on new university derived spin-off medical technology companies have been analysed using analytical processes based on actor-network theory (ANT), which introduces two new constructs to entrepreneurship research: first, network actants can include not just people but also non-personal identities such as documents and events, and secondly, these actants, whether personal or non-personal, are defined ontologically by their relationships. The paper explores the possibility of using the extended network concepts involved in ANT to develop a holistic approach to the study of the early stage development of NTSFs. This is seen as a logical development from Latour's initial focus on community impacts of new science to study of the way in which new technologies can be exploited through the generation of entrepreneurial spinoff ventures. The output of this ANT analysis has been first, a holistic graphical depiction of the actants and their relationships and how they vary between spin-off company cases from the same parent research provider. Secondly, the more detailed analysis of the actant relationships, based on the case study qualitative research data, has added to the understanding of the development of the selected spin-off ventures

Public research commercialisation, entrepreneurship and new technology based firms : an integrated model

Entrepreneurship is the engine of innovation. The accumulated tacit knowledge and culture of the entrepreneur are the resources essential to create wealth from research commercialisation leading to technological innovation and the creation of New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs). The authors explore, in definitional terms, discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity and entrepreneurial capacity as the essential elements in the interaction between all types of tacit knowledge (technological, managerial, risk management, financial, etc.). These both derive from and affect interactions between the institutions (sets of rules), organisational culture and external business environment. They also interact with the entrepreneur&rsquo;s own background and personality. This leads then to a wider analysis of the importance of such tacit knowledge as the glue bringing together effective mechanisms for wealth creation out of research commercialisation