In 2019 Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia (KCA) announced the launch of the SCOPR® (Survey of Commercialisation Outcomes from Public Research).
Public sector research in Australia and New Zealand leads the world. But how do we best demonstrate real-world impact? SCOPR® is a landmark survey of commercialisation outcomes from public research.
Australian and New Zealand universities, medical research institutes and other publicly funded research organisations are invited to participate.
“The launch of SCOPR is an important initiative for KCA and aims to further demonstrate the value of technology transfer and commercialisation activities to our members, publicly funded research organisations and the wider community,” KCA Chair Dr Erin Rayment says.
Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Alan Finkel AO agreed and said “Research managers, heads of institutes and government policy advisors need access to data that will help them optimise commercialisation and industry engagement from lab level to national level. I am delighted that KCA and partners are taking on the task of surveying the commercialisation and industry engagement achievements of the public research sector, to gather the necessary data”.
SCOPR will enable benchmarking of participating institutions’ research industry engagement and commercialisation results relative to the sector, to inform their policies and planning. For the wider community, it will show the real-world impact and dollar outcomes of public sector research.
SCOPR® is conducted annually by Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia (KCA), the peak body representing technology transfer professionals and their organisations in Australia and New Zealand. Through its members, KCA has led best practice in industry engagement, technology transfer and entrepreneurship for research organisations since 1978. Conducting SCOPR® is a core activity of KCA, and it is offered to members and non-members alike as a part of our contribution to enhancing the visibility and success of research commercialisation in Australia and New Zealand.
Prior to 2016 Commercialisation Data was collected in the National Survey of Research Commercialisation conducted by the Australian Government. SCOPR® was launched in 2020 collecting data for the years 2017 – 2019.
In 2023, KCA entered into a strategic partnership with the Australian Government Department of Education with the aim of improving response rates for SCOPR® and achieving enhancements to survey questions.
We thank and acknowledge the efforts of gemaker who KCA engage to conduct the survey and deliver the report.
In the past 5 years, publicly funded research organisations have achieved AU$1.3B in commercialisation deals in Australia and NZ$671M in New Zealand. Across both countries, 350 new companies have been created.
These figures from KCA’s SCOPR® 2023 Survey of Commercialisation Outcomes from Public Research show tremendous success in the commercialisation of publicly funded research, achieving positive impact in society in a wide range of technologies from life sciences through to MedTech, IT and engineering solutions.
In 2023, 70 Australian and New Zealand research organisations participated, an increase of 9% on last year.
Key achievements for 2023 include:
“The commercialisation output of the public research sector hasn’t been overly affected by the impact of Covid. In fact, the excellent results have been generated through the efforts of only 407 Research Commercialisation Staff”, said Mr John Grace AO, “It is a stellar effort supporting over 48,000 researchers in Australia and New Zealand.”
“The strong support for SCOPR® continues to demonstrate its interest to the public research sector. In our strategic alliance with the Department of Education they see the data as being very important in their policy decision making,” KCA Chair Quin Chang said.
Download the full SCOPR™ 2023 report
Download the Australian Infographic
“It is very pleasing to see the significant increase of participation of organisations for 2022” KCA Chair Quin Chang said, “This increase confirms the value of the survey both to individual organisations and to the wider community”.
SCOPR is overseen by a committee chaired by Mr John Grace AO, with support of expert professionals to conduct the survey. KCA’s role is to enable individual organisations assess their research performance while the aggregate commercialisation metrics emerging from the survey results help to highlight their economic contribution and inform policy development.
Download the full SCOPR™ 2022 report
Download the Australian Infographic
In just 5 years publicly funded research organisations in Australia have achieved AU$1.2B in commercialisation deals with 260 new companies created in Australia and 47 new companies created in New Zealand.
These results lay out in a clear, comprehensive, and unequivocal way how Australian and New Zealand research is succeeding on the world stage and how that translates to the universal language of dollars and cents.
“The path from idea to reality is full of unexpected obstacles and is often difficult to measure,” SCOPR™ Chair John Grace AO said. “This data is positive proof Australasian public research organisations are contributing significantly to the new industries of Australia and New Zealand and are producing products and services of international significance.”
Download the full SCOPR™ 2021 report
Download the Australian infographic
Commercialisation revenue has more than doubled over the past two years, as research powers Australia’s post-pandemic recovery.
Hundreds of start-ups and spin-outs contributed to the $242.3 million dollar return on investment in 2020 – up from $119m in 2018 – despite the challenges of COVID-19.
“Despite the tough year, there was strong growth in commercial activity ranging from number of inventions to commercialisation income and new start-up companies,” Chair of SCOPR, John Grace AO, says.
Download the 2020 SCOPR survey report
KCA’s Survey of Commercialisation Outcomes from Public Research (SCOPR), delivered by commercialisation company gemaker, showcases the vital work of Technology Transfer professionals who move research from the lab into everyday use.
SCOPR enables benchmarking of participating institutions’ research industry engagement and commercialisation results relative to the sector, to inform their policies and planning. For the wider community, it shows the real-world impact and dollar outcomes of public sector research.
SCOPR was overseen by a steering committee chaired by KCA board member Mr John Grace AO.
34 Australian and 15 New Zealand research organisations responded to the survey.
“Research from universities is often early stage and needs a team of people to get from concept to product. The outstanding innovations in this report have the potential to improve and save lives, while boosting our economy by billions of dollars,” KCA Chair, Dr. Erin Rayment, says. “It’s time to start planning for a knowledge-led recovery. To do that, we need to increase our investment in research and development, and commercialisation activities.”
Download the 2019 SCOPR survey report