Professional services company KPMG put forward its recommendation in a report.
KPMG Australia has published a report which recommends the three public universities in Adelaide merge their respective technology transfer office. The three institutions are Adelaide University, South Australia University and Flinders University.
Staff from the three commercialisation arms have met with the premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill, to discuss his own proposal for a so-called connector company. This company would form a link between industry and technology transfer offices, and connect representatives to the relevant people.
A formal recommendation by the three institutions to the premier is expected in a month. While a complete merger of the universities has been ruled out, the universities are considering rationalising some courses in due time.
KPMG is one of the world’s largest professional services companies, and is considered one of the big four auditors alongside Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young. It has the smallest revenue out of the four, at $23.4bn in 2013.
Warren Bebbington, vice-chancellor at Adelaide University, said: “I think everyone knows there is just about three of everything in South Australia. It would be nice to sit down and talk about them, I would not want to predict ahead of time which make most sense to rationalise, but this is something, as with commercialisation, where you ought to take it piece by piece and look at it and see if there is a more efficient way of doing things, rather than simply going to the headline of banging institutions together which carries a lot of complication.”
