PraxisUnico's International Director, Nessa Carey, was invited to be the opening speaker at the Global Education Dialogue From Catapults to Commercialisation held in Canberra on 9th and 10th March.
The event was organised by the British Council and Universities Australia and was attended by nearly 100 delegates from the US and Australasia.
The conference provided an excellent opportunity to network and to learn more about the similarities and differences between the regions. There was an excellent presentation on the Warwick-Monash alliance, which was a great profile raiser for the UK. Given the geography though, it isn’t surprising that Australia is working very hard on its relationships with its Pacific neighbours. This is perhaps something that in the UK we forget to take into account, given the strong historical and cultural links between the UK and Oz.
We also forget how young the university sector is there. The first person to be awarded a PhD by an Australian university is still alive. Interesting cultural differences emerged which influence business practise. Numerous delegates from the ASEAN countries pointed out that there is no concept of a successful failure ( i.e. that you tried and you learnt and that will make you better next time) in their countries. There is simply failure.
This acts as a significant barrier to entrepreneurship, innovation and risk.Many of the ASEAN countries are suffering from the same problems we have faced in the UK around manufacturing. For example, innovation from Hong Kong tends to move to mainland China once the manufacturing process has been established, because of lower costs. South Korea is another example where reliance on the manufacturing sector is undermined by the transfer of industry to China and India. South Korea imports 97% of its energy and a huge percentage of its food, so a shift to a successful knowledge-based economy is critical. South Korea is spending 4.4% of its GDP on R&D and plans to increase this to 5% by 2017. There was a lot of debate around how we create the next generation of scientists who will drive the innovation economies.
Generally there was consensus that innovation, translation and impact are still seen as add-ons for PhD training for a select few who express an interest, rather than a standard component. Pretty much all delegates recognised the value of appropriate industrial placements during PhDs. But there was also agreement that education in innovation and entrepreneurship should be starting long before then, in schools. Most delegates agreed that access to venture capital is an area where both the UK and Australasia are at a disadvantage relative to the US, but that this isn’t just a money supply issue.
There is a lack of experienced executive management in our regions, which is a huge disincentive to the VC community. Nessa also met representatives from the Department of Industry, who are responsible for the National Survey of Research Commercialisation. They are facing many of the same issues as we find in the UK – what are the appropriate metrics that really capture commercialisation and engagement, and can operate over the appropriate timescales?
After two days in Australia, Nessa travelled on to Singapore. She was supported in this part of the trip by the IPO and met representatives from A*STAR and the National University of Singapore. Like the UK, Singapore has few natural resources. Its buoyant economy, with high cost of living, means it too needs to build its knowledge economy. Singapore is in its 5th Research Innovation Enterprise Plan which runs from 2011-2015. The current budget of 16.1 billion Singapore dollars is expected to increase in the next round. This budget is for a country with only five million residents.
An interesting aspect of A*STAR’s commercialisation strategy is that they are happy to second their scientists into companies. All IP generated during these secondments automatically belongs to the company. The rate of establishing start-ups has doubled in the last few years, but Singapore faces the same problem as the UK and Australia in finding experienced management teams. The National University of Singapore runs a scheme “Designed to cultivate dynamic and resourceful entrepreneurs, the NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) immerse students in the most entrepreneurial hubs in the world”.
More information can be found at http://www.nus.edu.sg/global/programmes6.html There is a noticeable lack of a UK campus, sadly.