Historic agreement a model for the higher education sector

Dec 01, 2004

The technology transfer company of the University of Queensland, UniQuest, and the University of Wollongong (UOW) signed a historic commercialisation agreement this week (Monday 29 November) at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney.

The agreement - the first ever undertaken between two Australian universities -- will enable UniQuest and UOW to co-operate in the training, development and prosecution of commercialisation of research and development outcomes from the University of Wollongong.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong, Professor Gerard Sutton, said the agreement should serve as a model for the higher education sector in forging collaboration between universities that avoid unnecessary and costly duplication of expertise.

UniQuest specialises in adding value to the outcomes of research at an early stage and was established to foster links between emerging technologies developed by university researchers and the financial and entrepreneurial resources of industry and business.

UniQuest has established more than 50 spin-out companies and with Wollongong will implement the UniQuest model of having managers of innovation and commercial development (MICDs) located in faculties. The MICDs, working with the researchers, will try to ensure that discoveries are made to work by managing and exploiting the intellectual property from their research either via licensing with appropriate industry partners or through the formation of dedicated "spin out" companies to exploit particular technologies.

“Three MICDs at Wollongong will work closely with UniQuest staff in identification, assessment and exploitation of potential commercial activities to maximise the benefits of publicly-funded research and create new employment opportunities for our staff and graduates,” according to Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Wollongong, Professor Margaret Sheil.

She said the agreement would allow the University of Wollongong to take advantage of a much larger, well- established organisation in UniQuest with a breadth of expertise that would ensure that taxpayers' money would be used more effectively.

UniQuest has more than 20 years technology transfer experience and is well placed to mentor the University of Wollongong in commercialising its innovation, according to the The University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Hay.

“In addition, the synergy between the research strengths of the two universities will give an added vitality to this historic collaboration,” Professor Hay said.

UniQuest Managing Director, David Henderson, said he anticipated prospects to leverage the expertise of both universities to package technologies for licensing opportunities and start-up companies.