Translating Science

“How to take more great Australian research from ‘bench to boardroom’ ” - Prof Mark Hutchinson, President at Science & Technology Australia (2021-2023)

Over recent years there has been a push to encourage researchers to translate their science out into the public domain to provide tangible benefits back into the economy and society as a whole. Many national grant funding schemes now want the lead scientists to be thinking about how their projects and discoveries can have a greater impact in society beyond the basic research itself.

In recent history, there have been several discoveries made that have led to significant scientific contributions which have impacted the world including (but not limited to), WiFi technology (contributed by John O’Sullivan and his team at CSIRO), polymer banknotes (partnership between the Reserve Bank of Australia and a team at CSIRO), spray-on skin for burns victims (Prof Fiona Wood and her team) and the Gardasil vaccine (HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer developed by Prof Ian Frazier and his team), just to name a few. However, there are a few challenges when translating science into something that can have commercial impact. As a side note, I suggest watching this short video by Prof Fiona Wood which speaks to some of these challenges, especially in the MedTech space.

Before I dive into some of these challenges, it is important to first understand the current structures in place that facilitate university based research. Generally, throughout their career, starting from early post-docs (those who have recently been awarded their PhDs) through to senior professors, researchers will often apply for competitive government grants through one of the two major funding bodies. In Australia, these are either via the ARC (Australian Research Council) or NHMRC (National Health & Medical Research Council) which enable researchers to carry out work in their field of study (note, there are also other sources of grant funding through foundations that fund raise for research in areas with a specific focus, such as the Cancer Council, National Heart Foundation, etc, but these are often comparatively smaller grants). 

Often, researchers will be based at a tertiary institute such as a university or specialised research institute such as CSIRO, WEHI, SAHMRI, ANSTO to name a few (note, a comprehensive list of Australian research institutes can be found here). For those based at a university, often they will need to undertake some level of teaching as well as take on other duties as part of their role while also being active in research, and although the university will cover salaries for teaching, the research funding is expected to come from external sources. If an applicant is successful, a portion of any awarded research grant are provided to the university to cover infrastructure and administrative costs for the planned research activities.

 If a researcher wishes to remain on an academic pathway and qualify for promotions, there are 4 key criteria they need to satisfy, each with 3-4 KPIs (key performance indicators). These criteria include: research output (KPIs: publications, impact, grants & innovation), teaching output (KPIs: student feedback, teaching innovation, mentoring & curriculum development), service to the academic community (KPIs: committee involvement, professional body involvement, contributions to peer reviews) and service to the institution (KPIs: leadership roles, outreach & involvement in university initiatives). (Note, this can vary slightly from institute to institute, but the overall framework is similar). 

As you can see, innovation which includes things such as patents, commercialisation of research and translational impact, is just one of many KPIs required by academic researchers who wish to advance their career. Quite often, universities have some version of a research & commercialisation department that can assist researchers in assessing the feasibility of patenting their work and provide them with advice and support in carrying out IP (intellectual property) searches and submitting ‘invention disclosure’ applications. These patents can often remain within the university where they will stay until such time as the technology can be licenced out to an institute or company willing to extend or commercialise it further. Creating a spin-out company is a much more challenging undertaking and requires a shift in focus that many researchers generally won’t take up and university research & commercialisation departments can only provide limited support.

Now, keep in mind, universities are generally a teaching institution first and foremost. Some would argue that a researcher’s focus should be on making discoveries and furthering the pool of academic knowledge, which of course has merit. Furthermore, many universities argue that commercialisation shouldn’t come at the expense of fundamental research work or international research collaborations. 

As researchers are being encouraged to commercialise and/or translate their science, how are they being supported to do this?

I wanted to understand whether the output of an institute depended upon the size and capabilities of the Research & Commercialisation (R&C) departments. The data below are the 2016 results of a national survey of research commercialisation (NSRC Vis) carried out by Dept. Industry, Innovation & Science, and shows the number of invention disclosures & start-ups created by various Australian universities/research institutes as well as the size of R&C departments. 

According to the survey, these are the Top 20 performing research institutes when searched by dedicated commercialisation staff metrics. From the data above, there doesn’t appear to be a correlation between the size of the R&C department and the number of invention disclosures or of start-ups created. 

What then determines the successful commercialisation output of these institutes? 

Although this survey only provides data up until 2016, it appears the landscape has since evolved with the creation of incubators, accelerators and venture funds within universities and research institutes such as the successful ON Prime and ON Accelerator programs facilitated by CSIRO. Many universities have their own business incubators such as University of Adelaide’s Thinclab which are designed to coach university students and staff through taking ideas to market by connecting them to industry experts that they wouldn’t normally have access to. 

There are a growing number of venture funds, such as CSIRO Main sequence mentioned below and others such as Tin Alley Ventures from University of Melbourne which is a university-dedicated VC fund designed to invest in and grow university affiliated startups. And it has only come to this author’s attention that in 2015, Australian VC fund, Uniseed, partnered with 5 research institutes and raised $50 million to help fund startups over a 10 year period. By 2023, an additional $85 million was raised through partnerships with Stoic Venture Capital and Unisuper and an additional 5 Australian universities joined the partnership. Uniseed have invested in 38 startups to date, 12 of which have exited!

However, the biggest investment came in 2022 by the Australian government who announced a $2 billion commercialisation fund aimed at helping researchers bridge the gap from proof of concept to advanced development in order to enable research with commercial potential to move beyond the patent stage. That money was allocated in part to CSIRO’s Main Sequence Ventures ($150 Million) and $1.6 billion towards the Australian Economic Accelerator fund that researchers can access by submitting grant proposals. 

It appears to be an exciting time for translating research and it will be interesting to see how well these investments continue to produce tangible outcomes from Australian universities/research institutes and the overall effect they will have on society in both improving the quality of life as well as economic benefit. 

However, my only concern for researchers is given how much time commitment is required when developing commercial outcomes, how will this impact other academic activities? Can and do universities provide support for backfilling other roles a researcher may have commitments to (such as teaching) while pursuing commercial activities? I can only imagine that this would be negotiated at the individual level, however given that the government is a driving force behind commercialising more research, should it then be left to the universities and/or research institutes to make up any shortfall in other academic activities? Food for thought I guess….

This also raises the question of whether researchers are interested in commercialising research in the first place and what does this mean for the future of fundemental research? Although this article focuses on the translational aspect of science and research, it does not imply that all research should have a commercial focus. In fact, I would argue that we should be mindful that this insentive doesn’t create a model for using universities and research institues as another means of simply churning out research purely based on economic benefit.

For example, does the scientific community have an ethical responsibility to openly share findings that could significantly contribute to the advancement of medicine or physics if it means curing diseases that are having a major global impact or help catapulte us closer to understanding the origins of the universe? Or should these finding stay behind a paywall, licence or in some cases national borders, if they have a potential commercial impact?

Like everthing in life, these decisions aren’t always cut and dry and should be managed case by case, but in my opinion, should be taken into consideration when deciding whether to commercialise research or not.

Finally, it will be fascinating to see how both the government and institute based funds and initiatives (incubators & accelerators) contribute to the successful translation of scientific knowledge into real-world impactful outcomes in the near future. Personally, I would like to see the national survey of research commercialisation updated in 2026 but this time linking in the sources of funding and/or other support such as incubators and accelerators.

Stay curious, 

Vicky :)

PS. The information provided in this article was collected with the best intentions and careful consideration by the author, however the information is intended to provide an overview and may not represent the whole landscape of the current events of research commercialisation in Australia due to limitations of sourcing current statistics from some institutes. If you are aware of any information contrary to what is published here, please feel free to contact the author who will make note of these discrepancies post-publishing. 

***Please note, these articles are based on my own experiences and opinions stated are my own and do not represent the opinion of any other individual, institution or group mentioned in the article.***