Australia tells universities to focus on commercialising research

"expert Andrew Norton said that while commercialisation of research was desirable, it was never likely to be a major source of revenue for either universities or the broad economy. While university accounts were “opaque” about commercialisation, revenue from royalties and licences had totalled just A$136 million in 2019, he said." I wonder if that poor income is because of theft of intellectual property, and commercialisation by others.

The whole point of university research is to do what the private sector cannot - to do the fundamental research required for future challenges. The LNP cannot get its head around the fact that what piece of fundamental research ends up being vitally important for tomorrow's tech simply cannot be predicted. The government's choice is either to outsource fundamental research to other countries and let Australia become a scientific backwater or accept the reality that fundamental research is a public good worthy of tax payer dollars. Do Australian's want to live in a sophisticated, knowledge based society or just make do with mining? I think it's becoming very clear what the LNP would prefer.

I like this quote as an example of pure sophistry: “An innovation culture has not been fostered within Australian universities, with performance management and rewards focused on quality of academic output and citations.” Well, I wonder why that is? Could it possibly have something to do with federal governments of both political persuasions encouraging universities to go down that path? And what does Alan Tudge, or Andrew Norton for that matter, know about those factors which actually encourage innovation and an inventive culture? I would hazard a guess, sweet FA. But likewise, just encouraging the production of fundamental research doesn't cut it, either. Creating and nurturing a culture that's free to explore problems from transdisciplinary perspectives, without interference from self-interested corporations or governments trying to pick winners is what's historically produced innovation, but don't expect to hear any more about that from any of the usual suspects.

How about the Federal Government commit to procuring 50% of its research consulting budget from Universities instead of KPMG, BCG, EY, Delloitte or PWC? There's a start?