New centre to deliver innovation to the real world
AUTHOR: Deborah Tarrant DATE: 08.12.05 ISSUE 3, 2005

An initiative to establish a pioneering Centre for Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship is set to bridge the gap that currently exists between Australia’s great scientific inventions and commercial success.
With the promise of delivering a new generation of entrepreneurs, a new centre – a joint venture between the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) and the faculties of Engineering and Science at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) – will promote the development of market-driven innovation from research.


Innovation and entrepreneurship are vital for wealth creation, and wealth creation is a fundamental part of every growing society.
Illustration: Gregory Baldwin

Announcing the initiative, AGSM Dean Rob McLean said fast-tracking capabilities in innovation and commercialisation is vital as it relates directly to future economic prosperity. Despite Australia’s great strengths in science and abiding interest in entrepreneurship, he observed: “we have struggled to get to the end point of commercialisation of technology.”

The centre will forge a close connection between the worlds of business and technological research. Its principal aim will be to accelerate the development of technology-based global companies from outstanding university research by providing a range of innovation enablers, market strategies and funding support.

“We will address how to bring market-driven commercialisation to bear in a university setting,” Mr McLean said. “This will involve linking some of the world’s best entrepreneurs with AGSM and UNSW, inviting them to visit, to share their experiences and perspectives.”

Collaboration between a world leading business school and internationally recognised engineering and science schools with the focus of developing successful entrepreneurs is a first for Australia.

Fast-tracking capabilities in innovation and commercialisation is vital as it relates directly to future economic prosperity.
Rob McLean
Photo: David Smyth

UNSW’s Dean of Faculty of Engineering Professor Brendon Parker welcomed the initiative as particularly timely. With many big companies closing down research and development activities, the need for engineering graduates to have entrepreneurial skills and to be ready to move into start-ups and small companies is pressing, he said.
The course will be unique in Australia for delivering the experience of learning through practical application by students working step-by-step through the processes of innovation and commercialisation.

Acknowledging the importance of this initiative, the business community has moved to provide financial backing. With a goal of raising $2.5 million to establish the centre and for the appointment of a Chair of Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship, funding commitments of more than $750,000 already have been received towards the project, including substantial seed funding of $500,000 over five years from Dr Peter Farrell, chairman and chief executive of Resmed, the Australian-founded medical technology company. Dr Farrell’s achievements in innovation and commercialisation were lauded at the launch of the initiative by UNSW Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mark Wainwright, as one of Australia’s outstanding success stories.

Dr Farrell, a Visiting Professor at UNSW and member of AGSM’s Advisory Council, says Australia needs “a cultural wake-up call”. “We need to build a strong, viable entrepreneurial culture where innovation thrives. Innovation and entrepreneurship are crucial for wealth creation – and wealth creation is fundamentally part of a growing society,” Dr Farrell says.

When people think of innovation in an Australian context they look to globally successful companies like ResMed and Cochlear, but the right education and environment will deliver opportunities for many more entrepreneurial success stories, Dr Farrell believes.

Dr Farrell who served in the UNSW Engineering faculty through the 1970s and 1980s is eager to ensure universities are “connected to the real world” and “outcomes focused”. Typically Australia has been poor at commercialisation because it has concentrated on input and processes, he says. As a major supporter of the Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship initiative, Dr Farrell says he hopes the new centre will deliver a whole new way of looking at the world, a fresh mindset where the considerations of the market come first, and innovation and infrastructure is built to meet those needs.

"Encouraging a new mindset by providing practical learning opportunities is essential."
Dr Peter Farrell AM

In 1989, Dr Farrell, with several others, founded ResMed, a born-global business, to develop devices for sleep disordered breathing. ResMed is now one of the world leaders in its field with distribution to more than 60 countries. The company has had 41 consecutive record income quarters since it listed on the NYSE in 1995. Despite a substantially academic background, Dr Farrell honed his own entrepreneurial skills after a wide exposure to industry in his early career.

Gary Zamel, founder of Mine Site Technologies, who is playing a key role in establishing and fundraising for the initiative, says for too long we’ve been saying Australia is good at R&D but poor at commercialization. “If Australia is serious about taking its technologies into global markets then we need to teach young graduates the whole process of commercialization and to develop a culture where people learn from real live businesses that it’s possible to go offshore at an early stage.” Mr Zamel, a UNSW alumnus and long-term member of UNSW’s School of Mining Engineering Advisory Board, believes entrepreneurial skills can be learned through the exposure to companies such as ResMed, Cochlear and Mine Site Technologies.

The enthusiasm and energy of the business community for the initiative is providing an entrepreneurial zest to the formative stages of the centre, promoting its establishment sooner rather than later.

With a target launch date of mid-2006, the new cross-disciplinary centre will deliver award and short courses to AGSM MBA students and advanced under-graduate and post-graduate students of UNSW.

Key to the centre will be nurturing a real understanding of the relationship between technology and market needs, confirms Rob McLean. Flowing from this will be the dual benefits of clearly identifying the market’s requirements and the ability of business to support research.

One of the aims will be to offer students real world experience with industry from the creation of a business plan through the innovation phase of developing and protecting technology and other products, and finally commercialization, Mr McLean says. The impact of market forces will be experienced firsthand on product and process development, the management of new ventures, intellectual property and capital-raising.

The course will be unique in Australia for delivering the experience of learning through practical application by students working step-by-step through the processes of innovation and commercialisation, Rob McLean believes.

Encouraging a new mindset by providing practical learning opportunities is essential, according to Dr Farrell. “You can read about entrepreneurship and innovation in a book, but to succeed at it you really have to smell it and feel it,” he says.

Mr McLean observes the global trend for the best business schools to link closely with other schools to tackle innovation and entrepreneurship. US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), recently listed by The Economist among the world’s top five universities, has created an exemplary model by establishing links between its engineering and business schools. MIT’s Deshpande Centre nurtures emerging technologies by connecting MIT innovators with venture capitalists and entrepreneurial companies.
One of the aims will be to offer students real world experience with industry from the creation of a business plan through the innovation phase of developing and protecting technology and other products, and finally commercialization.

While the AGSM-UNSW initiative is in the planning stages, a two-semester course is envisaged with the first focusing on how to approach commercialisation and innovation, including elements of design, marketing, technology, management and funding. In the second semester, students would learn what it takes to be an entrepreneur and be actively involved in the development and pitching of a business plan, Mr McLean says.

Students may approach the centre with a formed business plan, or develop their skills by being assigned to an industry project as part of the course. Exposure to successful entrepreneurs and innovators during the course or as part of a CEO speaker series would also form part of the students’ learning.

While the science and engineering disciplines are responsible for substantial technological inventions, the centre’s entrepreneurial focus will encompass wider enterprise opportunities, Rob McLean says.

From left: Professor Mark Wainwright AM, Dr Chris Roberts, Gary Zamel, Dr Peter Farrell AM and Rob McLean.

A structure for Australia’s first Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship Centre and its programs will be determined pending the formation of an interdisciplinary committee and advisory board. However, a significant portion of its future program has a relevance to current learning delivered by AGSM where courses are conducted in entrepreneurship and strategy, new product development, private equity finance and the management of intellectual property. “While these courses are currently on offer to graduates, they require an integrative focus on innovation,” explains Mr McLean. The school finds clear evidence of entrepreneurial potential annually in its popular annual Connector business plan competition with further plans to develop this program with UNSW.

Insights and knowledge already delivered as a basis of some AGSM courses would combine with the scientific expertise at UNSW with further links anticipated with the medical faculty, and potentially including design capability coming from the University’s Department of the Built Environment and College of Fine Arts, says Rob McLean. Increasingly, international trends show business schools exploring new perspectives in association with design schools.