RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION ECOSYSTEM: THE DYNAMICS FOR COMMERCIALIZATION OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCH IN MALAYSIA

Objectives: The paper will map the common practices (systems, processes, and strategies) employed by the Malaysian universities for commercialisation of university research and creation of university spin-out (USO) companies.

Prior Work: A new research work. This project was awarded research grant by the Higher Education Leadership Academy, Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education.

Approach: This study is a cross sectional mixed methods study with a primarily qualitative approach. For the qualitative portion of the study, the data collection protocol is designed to obtain data relating to the existing strategies, processes and systems employ by the participating universities. Face to face interview using a semi structured format will be used. For the quantitative portion of the study a set of self-administered questionnaire will be developed for this study and the instrument will be pretested prior the actual data collection. The population of the study are the academicians in higher institutes of learning (HIL) in Malaysia.

Results: The paper identifies key success factors and frameworks for Malaysian HILs enterprising activities originating from university research.

Implications: The research findings and recommendations will lead to the enhancement of the business start-up and research output commercialization support system among the HILs in Malaysia. The research findings and recommendations will lead to the enhancement of the national policies for enhancing the enterprising and entrepreneurship qualities among Malaysian HILs.

Values: HILs have been identified as one of the key factors for the growth and development of a nation. This is reflected in the vast amount of investment of public funds into research activities among the HILs by the government. This is actually a global trend that can be seen among both developed and developing countries across the globe. The investments made are in expectation of benefits that can be reaped by the researchers as well as enrich the growth of the country's economy. The benefits can be in terms of the enrichment of knowledge, development of expertise and human capital, more tangible would be in terms of the intellectual properties (IPs) produce by the research activities. Often the IPs would have commercial potentials and there are numerous avenues for commercialising such IPs. However, often only small percentages of the R&D output do get commercialized; most are treated as just another academic exercise. Thus, it is important to understand the dynamics for commercializing of university R&D in order to provide a better support system.