In 2015, life sciences company Sigma-
Aldrich approached a number o
Australian academics, including myself,
with the broad question: “How do we
better equip our early- and mid-career
researchers with the skills and resources
that will allow them to bring their
innovations and technical expertise to
industry?”
This was an interesting question,
as Australia is a global academic leader.
Our research publications account for
3% of the world’s output even though
we only have 0.3% of its population.
However, we don’t shine when it
comes to industry partnerships, patents
and start-ups. For every US$100
million spent on biomedical research,
the UK has nine times more start-up
companies and four times more patents than Australia. This is
a major problem, but no one has found a tangible solution.
So, one cold rainy Melbourne day earlier this year, some
industry and academic leaders met under the banner of the
“Science Next Collaborative” to ponder this critical question.
This was nothing new for academics. Different federal, state
and university bodies had reviewed these questions before,
highlighted the problems and made recommendations. These
white papers and reports generally soon found a home on a
shelf, gathering dust.
Did these white papers and reports highlight our inability
to translate our knowledge into tangible outcomes? We know
there is a problem, yet the ability to address it with something
other than words, statements and another paper was missing.
Redirecting funding to “translational research” has often
been heralded as a solution, but this shift in funding focus has
not yielded any tangible benefits, and I believe will never have
the required impact. Basic and blue-sky research still remains
the keystone of any competitive research nation. Without this
research there is nothing to translate; it’s a bit like giving up
on farming because it is supermarkets that translate crops into
our shopping baskets.
The Science Next Collaborative realised that our inability to
translate research into patents, spin-offs and industry engagement
was multi-faceted, with no single solution. It requires not just a
tweak of how we approach translation, but a paradigm shift with
the adoption of global best practice and innovative solutions.
The Science Next Collaborative identified that we need to
change how we train our early- and mid-career researchers,
providing them with the skills that industry needs. We should
also empower early- and mid-career researchers with the infor-
mation required to make that step towards commercial engage-
ment and output.
Industry has provided us with best practice entrepreneurial
models. Johnson & Johnson has innovation centres around
the world, and in 2015 opened its first innovation office at
Queensland University of Technology. The UK Medical
Research Council developed MRCT, a commercialisation
company that brings economies of scale, resources, industry
partnerships and expertise together to develop technologies
coming out of their universities. MRCT is extraordinarily
successful, having generated approximately $1.5 billion in
research income for its partner UK universities.
The Science Next Collaborative is still in its infancy, so we
are yet to see whether it will have the momentum and support
to make real change to our commercialisation pathways.
However, so far this initiative has developed its own resource-
rich website (http://sciencenextcollaborative.com) and has
organised forums in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
As this initiative expands and evolves in 2016, we may finally
have a credible solution that could allow Australia to realise its
full potential in academic research.
Derek Richard is a Science Next Collaborative Ambassador who is Principal Research Fellow
in the School of Biomedical Sciences at Queensland University of Technology.JAN/FEB 2016|| 39Bridging the Divide between Academia and Industry
The Science Next Collaborative is helping early- and mid-career researchers to make the leap
from research to commercialisation.
conSCIENCE Derek Richard
okalinichenko/Adobe