Our duty to commercialise research says Uni of Melbourne chief

Commercialising research is not onerous, in fact it can be liberating says University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell.

University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell. Photo: Mark Stewart

University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell has told his staff that commercialising research can be “liberating” and urged them to consider whether any of their work has value to business or broader society.

In his annual Vice-Chancellor’s Address, delivered online on Tuesday evening instead of before a live audience, Professor Maskell said it was “not just desirable to translate research (into applications), it is our duty to do so when the opportunity arises”.

“This is not onerous, it is in fact liberating and can open up many other avenues of inquiry and discovery,” he said.

Professor Maskell, a micro­biologist who co-founded several biotech companies when he was at the University of Cambridge, said the successful development of Covid vaccines was one illustration of the enormous impact of university research.

His comments come as the federal government prepares to launch a new commercialisation strategy for university research, and universities hope for extra funding to help develop discoveries to the point where they are ­attractive to investors.

“For those (academics) who don’t have a desire to commercialise, or to whom their research appears not to be translatable, I would say that you might in fact still have something that can be put into that pathway to benefit society,” Professor Maskell said.

“Let’s find you a partner who will be able to provide the interest and skills that might support you through this process.”

But Professor Maskell also stressed that successful research translation and commercialisation required investment in basic research. “This is a lesson that every successful nation that generates research learned long ago.”

He acknowledged that not all research was translatable and said academics had “an absolute right” to concentrate on their research interests if they chose.

Professor Maskell, a specialist in infectious diseases, co-founded companies including Arrow Therapeutics, which was sold to drug company AstraZeneca in 2007, and Discuva, a developer of antibiotics against drug-resistant bacteria that was sold to Summit Therapeutics.

In his address, he pointed out that research translation was not limited to medical and scientific knowledge, but extended into the arts and humanities.

The university’s Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation was supporting Indigenous culture and knowledge, he said, “operating in a commercialisation landscape to achieve crucial translational impact in non-profit ways”.

Professor Maskell also said the university’s nearly 5000 graduate student researchers were the “bedrock of the future research workforce” and the university “must find ways to nurture them”.

He said 70-80 per cent of commercialised research involved at least one graduate researcher.