Selling Dreams

Evidence suggests that most companies will pay more to licence a technology that can go live within 6-12 months of licensing, because the risk of development has been significantly reduced. Typical technologies with strong patented IPs come out of the government funded research  at Technology Readiness Level (TRL)2/3 and can often be licensed for reasonable royalties depending on how commercially relevant the technology is. Therefore technologies with perceived less protected IP needs to improve its protection and commercial perception by taking the technology from a TRL of typically 2/3 to 5/6.

While most Universities are able to develop technologies to TRL 2/3 very comfortably, an attempt to go beyond this level often meets with varying degree of success because of the following issues:

1. The less academic intensive process required to take the technology from 3-6 is less attractive to academic inventors who are looking for the next research and opportunity to publish.
2. The cost base and lack of specialist in low level technical work makes this stage of development expensive to be undertaken in the University.
3. Academic timetable and the core business of the University means that timetable for development are not often up to industrial expectation. In addition, the work is often required to be done based on piecewise funding that tends to often delay implementation and continuity.
4. Technologies developed by individuals are individually unique and requires a wide range of specialist knowledge inherent in the academic staff. It is therefore difficult to replicate all relevant knowledge in a commercial vehicle.

Saroko will work with Universities to explore strategies for commercialisation that is tailored to the specific requirements and the creative ecosystem of the particular University.