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Universities encouraged to join AgriFutures growᴬᴳ⋅ as report reveals investment boom in research commercialisation
With a new report showing Australia and New Zealand’s public research organisations are world class at commercialising their innovative ideas, AgriFutures Australia is urging them to join its online platform growAG. to extend their networks in the investment community even further.
The 2021 Survey of Commercialisation Outcomes from Public Research (SCOPR) report was released in Melbourne at the annual conference of Knowledge Commercialisation Australia (KCA), the peak body for technology transfer professionals. SCOPR Committee Chair John Grace said the results showed an impressive level of commercialisation emerging from Australian public research organisations.
“This is an exciting finding, given commercialisation is not necessarily a core activity – it is an indirect output from the research conducted,” said John.
“So, the 69 new companies and 1,333 invention disclosures that occurred in 2021 - resulting in $251 million in commercialisation revenue - is a bonus to the core activity.”
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The fifth SCOPR report included 49 research organisations from Australia and New Zealand which together oversaw $11.9 billion in research expenditure and employed 38,717 researchers.
“The report allows individual organisations to assess their own performance and for the sector to demonstrate its overall performance,” John explained.
“What it also shows is Australia performs comparably with international peers across most metrics and undertakes more transactions than our peers. There is some very unfounded mythology that we are not good at this activity and the numbers from the SCOPR report do not support those myths.”
AgriFutures growAG. Senior Manager, Arianna Sippel, attended the conference and said one of the broad trends was the increasing interest in agritech.
“We know there are huge opportunities in agritech – it is a booming industry – so the KCA Conference is a fantastic meeting ground to foster collaboration and develop relationships that make contracting and negotiation easier between research organisations and RDCs like AgriFutures,” Arianna explained.
“One of the great outcomes has been the formation of the agrifood special interest commercialisation group, which is now giving professionals working in the ag and food space a forum to connect better, share stories, share networks and grow the opportunity flow.”
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How growAG. helps universities drive commercialisation
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“And then there is growAG., which is an easy-to-use online platform to help increase the exposure of commercial opportunities.
Arianna said AgriFutures was working with a number of universities to help list their opportunities on growAG. and showcase research capabilities, technologies, innovations, and expertise.
“Some are seeking licensing partners for intellectual property, others are supporting startups to raise capital or trying to find strategic partners to scale up,” she said.
“We would love to work with more tertiary institutions to help them make new connections across the investment and innovation ecosystem and keep this momentum going.”
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Launched in April 2021, AgriFutures growAG. has more than 80,000 users, a third of which are based overseas, and has listed more than 180 commercial opportunities and 2,800 research projects.
To explore the AgriFutures growAG. marketplace, make enquiries, or make a submission, head to growag.com.
KCA’s 2021 SCOPR Report can be viewed here.