A longitudinal comparative study of the role of entrepreneurship in research commercialisation performance: Australia, UK and USA

Research commercialisation surveys are now available fm Australia for the FY 2000 and 2002. The paper reviews longitudinal comparative data for research commercialisation performance in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the USA. Commercialisation performance measures with a specific focus on entrepreneurial spin-off companies are discussed and performance ,comparisons have been made based on research expenditure in US dollars adjusted for purchasing power parity. The conclusions from these analyses suggest that Australian public agency performance in generation of spin-offs, that is New Technology Small Firms, per unit of research expenditure adjusted for purchasing power parity has been comparable in recent years to and in some sectors superior to that in the other countries reviewed. However, Australian university revenue from intellectual property licensing royalties and research contracts has been below that of the other countries studied. The analysis suggests that this results from both a demand side problem , low business investment in R&D and hence low technology absorptive capacity, and a supply side problem, that is lack of time and lack of incentive to academic researchers to develop contacts with and meet the expectations of industry and other research users for technology that works.