Commercialisation of University Research: An Investigation of Researchers’ Behaviour

Globally, the importance of universities and their research activities have been widely recognised (Candell & Jaffe 1999). Universities in general are critical components of national systems of innovation. Being one of the major contributors to the generation and transmission of knowledge within the systems, universities are hubs of discovery and creativity. Ideas can be shared and discussed in an open and tolerant environment. They are also centres of excellence where industries can come to for their R&D needs. Universities house expertise in a variety of fields, foster relationships with stakeholders of the regions they locate within, conduct research and training, providing the foundations for a nation’s social, cultural, economic and technological progress.

Andersson (2010) identified the key factors that impacts the quality of research in universities are the research environment and researchers dynamics. This paper intends to investigate the researchers’ dynamics specifically; to explore the researchers’ profile in terms of their research achievement (over the past five years), attributes, behaviour and attitude.

Literature Review

According to Damon (2011), “From a standpoint of social policy, colleges and universities should strive to enhance welfare by producing an educated citizenry, a qualified and motivated workforce, and a continuing stream of creative ideas and conceptual breakthroughs in terms of medical technology, scientific advancement, reconsideration of appropriate roles for social institutions, reinterpretations of literature and history, and potential methods of resolving differences peacefully. Universities, collectively, should provide upward mobility for the population, providing opportunities for the disadvantaged to share in the production and consumption of the nation’s wealth. Individually, universities must deliver on the promise to provide the basis for ‘the examined life’ and, possibly, to enhance the student’s lifetime income by more than the cost of the education.”

The World Bank (2000) recognised that universities play important roles in improving the lives of individuals and society, enabling higher wages and productivity, ultimately driving society’s independence and initiative. James (1990) identified five goals for universities;
•    Driving research and keep teaching loads low
•    Balancing the quantity of undergraduate and postgraduate students
•    Recruiting better quality students
•    Balancing class size and provision of teaching support services to maintain quality
•    Balancing both teaching and research quality.

Massy (1996) noted that universities in their effort for prestige and recognition have become more independent, entrepreneurial and place more emphasis on research. Andersson (2010) identified the key factors that impact the quality of research in universities, which are the research environment and researchers’ dynamics.

Damon (2011) defined “research” as, “the time the scholar spends in contemplation. The scholar’s time is an input to the production process, but contemplation may be seen as the research process itself. We also find the term “research” being used to refer to a paper written by a scholar. This is an output of the production process. It is appropriate to distinguish among: (a) spending time on research (an input), (b) conducting study or organising one’s thoughts (the process), and (c) communicating the results of the study.”

The OECD (1994) defined “research” as, “creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications.” March (1991) differentiates research between exploring new potentials and exploiting known findings. World Bank (2000) described “research universities” as, “Institutions that aim at achieving research excellence across many fields and providing high-quality education. Hence, they allocate relatively light faculty teaching loads, emphasise research accomplishments in recruitment and promotion decisions, adopt international standards for awarding degrees, and being highly selective in the students they admit. They are most closely connected to advances in knowledge, monitoring break-through in many fields and investigating ways to exploit important results for social and private gain.”

Lamari and Jacob (2011) studied factors associated with research productivity and found that variables such as age, gender, provincial government funding, federal research agency funding, and international collaboration all have significant effect on researchers productivity. Roca, Bikfalvi, Simon and Alcoba (2011) recognised the following as factors that may affect research performance;
•    Government’s policies
•    Universities objectives and procedures
•    The unit or department the researcher belongs to
•    The researcher’s own preferences and attitudes
•    The research topic
•    The research type; qualitative and quantitative
•    Incentive systems

In the Tenth Malaysian Plan, commercialisation and innovation development has been assigned as ‘Niche 1’ by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education which implies the emphasis and urgency (MOHE 2010). When commercialising a university’s research, there are three main strategies commonly applied; patenting or licensing, contract research, and the creation of university spinout (USOs) companies (Kroll & Liefner 2008). The importance of academic research can be seen through spin-off creation (Clayman & Holbrook 2004; Hindle & Yencken 2004). Not only that, the importance of university research has caught the attention of the industry players. They are now relying heavily on the university research results (Fabrizio 2006). Their observation seems to be supported by earlier studies carried out both in the UK and the US (UNICO 2001; AUTM 2002).

USOs also had been identified as an effective vehicle for technology transfer (Roberts & Malone 1996; Bekkers, Gilsing, van der Steen 2006), and as an important tool for commercialisation for university research (Wright et. al. 2007). Furthermore, several studies indicate that the formation of USO companies is a more successful route to commercialisation than licensing (Gregory & Sheahe 1991; Bray & Lee 2000; Rogers, Takegami & Yin 2001).

Breznitz, O’Shea and Allen (2008) found that Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) success was partly due to access to regional infrastructure by fostering a culture of entrepreneurship into campus; meanwhile Yale University’s success was due to the provision of infrastructure internally. A number of studies have identified several key initiatives implemented by universities towards enhancing their success rates in commercialising their research outputs and creating USOs. The initiatives include technology incubators, science and technology parks, subsidy programs, entrepreneurship centres, creating specialised offices – technology licensing office, commercialisation office, etc; incentive structures, royalty regimes, and equity investments (Mian 1997; Henrekson & Rosenberg 2001; Jensen & Thursby 2001; Feldman et al., 2002; Shane 2002, 2004; Siegel et al., 2003; Link & Scott 2005; Lockett & Wright 2005; Powers & McDougal 2005; Rasmussen et al., 2006).

A number of studies investigate the aspects of technology transfer and commercialisation by universities, such as studies by Reimers (1999), AUCC (2001), Tornatzky, et al., (2002), Lambert (2003), Miles and Daniels (2007), and Smilor and Matthews (2004). However, most of the studies come from developed nations.  A developing country like Malaysia is still behind in terms of its research capabilities as evidenced by various rankings. Based on the global analysis (De Vol et al., 2006), Malaysia has no record among the top 50 university rankings worldwide. In fact, Malaysia has just entered the commercialisation game very recently.  This is evidenced by the fact that the Ministry of Higher Education’s focus in terms of driving R&D activities among the universities had evolved from establishment of a research culture (2006 – 2008), to driving quality research (2008 – 2010), and most recently to promote research excellence through producing innovation and its commercialisation (2011 – 2012).

The Malaysian Landscape

The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) reported the research commercialisation achievement by the Malaysian public universities up till August 2008 (Table 1), which is the most current report available at the time of this study. According to the report, the 16 public universities in Malaysia had only managed to commercialise 58 products out of the 313 identified with commercial potential (who identified them). The achievements among the private universities were found to be no better than what was seen from the public ones. It was clear that there is a need to address the situation and drive the universities to a better performance level.

At the individual Institutes of Higher Learning (IHL)/university level commonly the ecosystem for R&D and business creation would include the following:
•    Infrastructure and info structure for R&D activities (e.g.: library, databases, laboratories, equipment, etc.)
•    Organisational structure
o    R&D Management (e.g.: Research Management Centre)
o    Commercialisation Management (e.g.: Business Unit, Commercialisation Centre, Technology Licensing Office (TLO), Innovation Centre, Technology Transfer Office (TTO), Training and Consulting Unit, Business Creation Office, Incubator, etc.)
•    Human capital
•    Policies (e.g.: R, D & C Roadmap, training and development programmes, incentives, KPIs, funding, etc.)

There are three new aspects of the schemes, namely, the Exploratory Research Grant Scheme (ERGS), Long-term Research Grant Scheme (LRGS) and Prototype Research Grant Scheme (PRGS). Previously the Ministry only had one R&D grant scheme, the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS). The introduction of ERGS, LRGS and PRGS, reflects the government’s desire to enhance the research, development and commercialisation activities among the universities. The three new schemes bridge the gap between university R&D activities and the programmes in placed to drive commercialisation and business creation.

Methodology

The paper started with literature review and document search to answer the research objectives. The target respondents were the academicians from the public and private universities in Malaysia. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire developed for this study. Based on the sampling frame of 500 academicians from the public and private universities in Malaysia, 218 samples were obtained revealing a 43.6% response rate. The survey was developed to explore the researchers’ behaviour and attitude with regards to research, development and commercialisation activities. Firstly, their research achievements for the past five years were determined in terms of conducting research, producing intellectual properties and commercialised output. The researchers were then profiled further in terms of their attitude, time management, and behaviour. The survey also captured the researchers’ opinion on aspects related to research, development and commercialisation activities from their universities. The survey also investigates the common reasons for not conducting research, producing intellectual properties and commercialised output. The data collection period was throughout the months of January, February and March, 2011.

The correlations of the researchers’ opinions about their universities and their behavior (overall) were examined (Table 4).  Following were observed from the results. All the correlations that are found significant are positive. There are significant correlations between the researchers’ opinion about the university’s facilities, training programs, strategic roadmap, policies, financial support and incentives helping to drive the research activities with them actually utilising the facilities, training programs and financial supports, referring to the strategic roadmap and policies, and receiving financial incentives. Exception is seen between their opinions regarding the training programs with them actually utilising the financial supports.

The respondents that answered “No” to having conducted research over the past five years cited a number of reasons as shown in Figure 14. The most common reason for not being an active researcher was due to not having the time to do research. The other common reasons include lacking training to do research and having too much teaching responsibilities prevented them from pursuing research. This reflects their average time allocation (Figure 11).

Reasons for Not Having Research Output that Led to IPR Filing and Commercialisation in the Past Five Years (2006 – 2010)

The respondents that answered “No” chose the reasons as shown in Figure 15. The most common reason for not having research output that led to IPR filing and commercialisation was due to believing that such activities have no relevance to their research work. The other top reasons include lacking the necessary expertise, simply not interested to do so, as well as the view that such activities are too time consuming as well as expensive.