Readiness for Innovation:A Reflection on the GFCC University and Research Leadership Forum Reports, Optimizing Innovation Alliances and Leveraging Extreme Innovation.

By Ken Sloan

The two recent GFCC reports, Optimizing Innovation Alliances and Leveraging Extreme Innovation, make important contributions to understanding the increasingly important role of universities in delivering scalable innovations. They also provide case evidence of the conditions that must be in place for these innovations to be both meaningful and impactful. Both reports not only provide an accessible summary of the practices being adopted in institutions around the world, but also provide a number of useful frameworks for those institutions which might only be beginning to look seriously at innovation, translation and commercialisation.

The definition of innovation adopted in Optimizing Innovation Alliances provides a useful insight into the important role that innovation plays in enabling universities to contribute to society:

“Innovation is the transformation of knowledge into new products, processes, methods, business modes and organizational solutions that create economic and societal value”.

The importance of this definition is that it allows for valuable contributions in innovation to arise directly from, or in, collaboration with disciplines in the Humanities, Arts, Law and the Social Sciences. A pan disciplinary perspective on innovation is important if a university is to place innovation at the centre of its mission as opposed to it being a by-product of its core.At Monash University, we have been reflecting on what it means to be an Enterprising University in terms of what we do, why we do it, and, perhaps even more importantly, how we do it. It is in considering that last point where both of the GFCC reports resonate significantly.

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Being Deliberate

We can point to examples of significant innovation throughout our history. Whether it is a pioneering role in the development of IVF, the first example of a 3D printed jet engine, developing an inhaled aerosol delivery system for oxytocin or developing the FODMAP diet and making it accessible and usable internationally. There are many more. Each example has shown it takes outstanding research by a visionary leader working with a high-quality team. It requires the University to take a timely and calculated risk, and it requires the University to be willing and able to flex its operations to absorb this new type of activity.

Yet what if examples like this are to be the rule rather than the exception to the rule? What if the signal we want to give to our partners in government and industry, as well as our past, current and future students, is that Monash is an institution through which innovation happens every day? In short, we have to be deliberate. Not leaving it to chance that we have the capacity and capability to innovate, but to ensure that our people, our policies, our decision-making systems and our operations are designed deliberately to enable this innovation to happen. Does this happen overnight? Of course not! If a University can shift its direction by a couple of degrees in all of these areas, its potential to be more innovative at scale can be transformed.

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How Are We Already Doing That at Monash?

Monash has a number of things already in place which have helped it to be better able to innovate or contribute to innovation at scale:Technology Platforms are a significant feature of our infrastructure cutting across all disciplinary areas. All 40+ of the platforms are ISO accredited which not only assures the quality of how we use them, but also makes it easier for industry to be able to plug in and play.

Institutes provide an easy to access node for collaboration with other university partners and industry. They drive our interdisciplinary research but also help to ensure that we are collaborative internally, and thus more naturally collaborative externally. Monash’s recently launched Data Futures Institute mobilises talent and technology from across all ten faculties, enabling easy access to interdisciplinary capability driven by the challenge being addressed, rather than Monash’s organisational form.

Monash is also adept at taking calculated risks and backing winners. This is shown in the list of major programs above and there are many others that sit alongside it. Backing winners has not only been about identifying academic stars, but also making sure they have access to the resources and support for their programs to be successful.

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Is It All Sorted? Anything Left To Do?

Monash’s track record to date has shown it can do innovation at scale but, as suggested by both reports, more intervention and action has been, and will be, necessary to continue to grow this significantly.

Understanding and Building to Scale takes a different way of designing and conceptualising opportunities. It can be the difference between something being a one-off collaboration and a longer-term innovation partnership. Monash has established a Major Opportunities Group (MMOG) which mobilises our most experienced larger program grant to support and nurture new programs as they are being initiated and designed. This is particularly useful when the program is self-initiated with partners, rather than being a response to a government call. The MMOG has also developed tools and frameworks to help academics and professionals to design for future scale from the outset.

Building Enterprising Capability and an Entrepreneurial Mindset also requires deliberate action. We have developed programs and system interventions which intend to nurture these talents in our future research, education and professional leaders. One such system intervention was the establishment of Biocurate, as a joint company with the University of Melbourne. This has started to transform how our drug and therapeutic discoveries access the market. Biocurate has better prepared our researchers to anticipate a more commercially oriented outcome for their industry-relevant work.

Monash has also started to look at the agility of the systems and decision-making approaches our researchers have to navigate. The nature of decisions being made when building innovation to scale are inevitably more complex, so it has been important to ensure those making the decisions are also prepared. That means having the insight and confidence to say no to an emerging opportunity, which is sometimes harder than saying yes!

Another important intervention has been designing metrics and capturing insights which are relevant to the things we are seeking to do, rather than being based solely on past activities. Where government captures data, monitoring progress and assessing impact and value for money has been an easier task, even if most of the indicators are lagging. Driving scalable innovations, and the increased risks that can sometimes come with them, necessitates lead indicators to be more readily available so that timely decisions, even on longer term programs, can be taken.

Finally, as both GFCC reports attest, scalable and extreme innovations are for the long term. Universities can organise themselves for extreme innovation and be adaptive to the needs of collaborators and partners, but they will always need a stream of fundamental knowledge upon which to base this innovation. It is for this reason why Monash and similar universities continue to evidence and prosecute the case for sustained and increased investment in fundamental research. The location of research and education talent is not distributed by geographical boundaries, but by environments where such talent is nurtured and where investment is strong. This requires all governments to step-up and invest for the benefit of their own citizens and the global community.

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Professor Ken Sloan is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Enterprise) at Monash University and a Practice Professor in the Faculty of Business and Economics.