Mohd Irwan Seigar Adullah, the secretary-general of Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance, has summed up his country’s efforts to commercialisation university research with “I could cry”.
The comments were made at the Global IP Valuation conference, organised by the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO), when Irwan was asked about the poor performance of the country’s commercialisation drive.
Malaysia’s attempts to bring its research and development (R&D) commercialisation in line with other countries traces its roots back to 2004. Following the creation of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, the Government asked for more market-based applications for research from Malaysia’s universities.
In response, universities requested that tech transfer offices (TTOs) be established, similar to models in the UK and US, to assist in the identification and commercialisation of potential research. The green light was given by Irwan to set them up, but the new TTOs failed to have much of an effect.
The universities followed up with requests for incubators and market research teams to identify a need for potential products, but still have been unable to produce results.
Despite nine years of disappointment, the Malaysian Government plans to continue pushing for further commercialisation results, with a target that public universities will eventually generate at least 30% of operating budgets themselves and reduce reliance on government funding.
It is hoping that it’s Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MAGIC) will help support entrepreneurial spirit in the country, with Irwan adding that he hops MAGIC will become “the starting point to bring the universities to start working [more closely] with each other and with entrepreneurs”.
In addition, this year saw the creation of an Intellectual Property Financing Fund worth RM200 million ($63m). A further RM 109 million has been made available to MyIPO for training in commercialisation and the creation of a market platform for the trading of intellectual property.
