Historic agreement a model for the higher education sector

The University of Queensland’s technology transfer company, UniQuest, and the University of Wollongong (UOW) will today (Monday, November 29) sign a historic commercialisation agreement.

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

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 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,” said Professor Hay.

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 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.

The technology transfer company has established more than 50 spin-off 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.

UOW Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Margaret Sheil said three MICDs at Wollongong would 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 staff and graduates.

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.

For more information, contact UniQuest Managing Director, David Henderson on (07) 3365 4037.