INCREASING THE POTENTIAL FOR COMMERCIALISATION OF INNOVATION AND RESEARCH RESULTS WITHIN POLISH UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

The article proposes an approach to improve commercialisation potential of Polish universities. Commercialisation will be understood in the paper in a broad way as the process of introducing a new product or production method into commerce – making it available on the market. The article focuses on three dimensions of commercialisation related issues. Firstly, it addresses the weaknesses of the current system that can be observed within universities. Secondly, it demonstrates an example of using technology scouting as an approach to overcome some of the identified obstacles. Finally, it describes the methodology supporting scouting and overall commercialisation processes with empirically confirmed usability. Establishing active / pull (aimed at identification and monitoring of knowledge creation at different levels of a university), instead of passive / push (based on reports from the academic staff) approach to commercialisation could be a key to effective commercialisation. Furthermore, the required characteristics should aim at: openness of the scientific environment for collaboration and knowledge sharing with business practice, building capacity for academic entrepreneurship and developing academic staff experience in commercialisation. The approach proposed in the paper can be useful for designing commercialisation processes within different universities. The publication is novel in terms of analysing scouting implementation experiences in Polish universities and research results on the usability of a methodology to support commercialisation processes.

Keywords

• commercialisation, technology transfer, innovation, scouting, quicklook methodology