Callaghan Innovation, a new government body in New Zealand (NZ), has signed several deals with the country’s universities with the objective of bringing the scientific and business communities together on commercialisation.
Callahan’s major deal was with KiwiNet, a commercialisation unit which represents 6000 academics across a number of universities. Under the terms of the partnership, the two bodies will work together to focus the research community on commercialisation while feeding back information from the business world.
It has also entered into similar strategic partnerships with Lincoln University’s Lincoln Agritech, and Auckland’s commercialisation unit Uniservices.
Stating that the partnerships were the first of many, Mary Quin, Callaghan chief executive, said: “Our focus is to have strong working relationships with organisations right across the innovation system.”
Bram Smith, KiwiNet general manager, said that the consortium aimed to assist the academic community in becoming more focused on commercialisation with greater input from business.
Adding that in the past, researchers competed for funding, he said: “All of that drives researchers to work within their organisations, potentially even compete with each other. ‘We can’t afford to compete like that, we can’t afford so much fragmentation in New Zealand.”
