THE University of Queensland made nearly four times more money from licence income in 2002 than the next best performing university and had more than $40 million equity in 34 spin-out companies.
THE University of Queensland made nearly four times more money from licence income in 2002 than the next best performing university and had more than $40 million equity in 34 spin-out companies.
It is by far the leading Australian university in terms of commercialisation success.
University of Queensland (UQ) now boasts state-of-the-art facilities and a biotechnology hub that includes three research institutes. As a result of these investments its research and development income is soaring.
However, UQ’s success in making money from its research has taken a long time to achieve, according to UQ senior deputy vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield.
“The university has over a consistent period of time put significant effort and resources into research and development and commercialisation,” Professor Greenfield said.
“It hasn’t all been smooth sailing; it took a sustained effort and I think the key thing was investing equity in UniQuest.”
UniQuest was established in 1983 to add value to early-stage research and foster links between the researchers and industry.
In this way it has helped commer-cialise the university’s research projects.
UniQuest receives more than 100 new intellectual property disclosures each year, writes more than 30 provisional patents a year, manages about 187 patents, and has helped create 40 spin-off companies.
However it wasn’t until about 10 years ago, when UQ made a $6 million investment in UniQuest, that the business began to boost commer-cialisation outcomes, according to Professor Greenfield.
“That allowed us to employ people with skills to package the deals,” he said.
“The problem with that is it’s expensive because you have to pay for these people in advance of even having closed a deal. But it was an important step.
“The second thing that was important was the willingness of the university to invest with the University of Melbourne to create Uniseed. Before that there was no pre-seed fund and I would still argue that the four that were set up by the Federal Government are not operating like pre-seed funds, except for perhaps one.
“Uniseed was very important because it enabled early-stage concepts to be developed and we could go out and get seed money, and a number of those have gone on to get first- and second-stage funding.”
Uniseed, established in 2000, received $10 million from UQ and $10 million from the University of Melbourne.
Uni of Melbourne had the third highest licence income in 2002 from the 38 universities surveyed by Department of Education Science and Training and three start-up companies.
Uniseed has recently secured external funding of $15 million.
But people are equally important to monetary investment, according to Professor Greenfield.
UQ has a manager of commercialisation, jointly funded by UQ and UniQuest, employed within every faculty.
“Their job is to identify at an early stage promising IP,” Professor Greenfield said.
He said while it was important for students to publish their work to advance their academic careers, it was also important to foster a culture of commercialisation so students could achieve both outcomes.
In 2002 UQ employed 11 people involved with commercialisation. In Western Australia UWA employed three people, Curtin two, Murdoch one and ECU had none.
However, WA is now ramping up staffing levels in order to achieve greater gains from commercialisation.
But it has been a long road for UQ, according to Professor Greenfield.
He said it had taken seven years from university’s initial $6 million equity investment in UniQuest (in 1995) before healthy returns were made.
Professor Greenfield said the Beattie Government had been a significant contributor to its commercialisation success.
“They are significant in giving us the infrastructure that has enabled the ideas to be generated. We’ve got three new institutes here (The Institute for Molecular Bioscience, the Australian Institute for Bio-engineering and Nanotechnology, and the Queensland Brain Institute) and there’s no doubt that the infrastructure helps the university,” he said.
Premier Beattie has committed $20 million to help construct a $60 million facility for the newly formed QBI.
The Queensland Government provides $150 million in R&D funding through its Smart State Research Facilities Fund.
UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
• UQ made the most income from licensing its research in 2002.
• UQ has the highest number of spin-out companies.
• UQ’s success is based on the establishment of UniQuest, a company devoted to identifying commercialisation opportunities and fostering relationships with industry.
• UQ’s ability to develop companies and licences is also based on a $20 million investment fund it established with the University of Melbourne in 2000.
• UQ now has clusters of industries such as biotech operating from institutes situated on its campuses.
• The Queensland Government has been a significant contributor to UQ’s commercialisation success.
• The Queensland Government has committed $150 million to R&D in Queensland.
