Kim Carr: Australian universities generally earn less than 1% of their income from royalties, patents and licences. (September 24, 2008)

Addressing (via video link) the two day Open Access and Research Conference 2008 today the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, said something of significance. What the consequences will be remains to be seen.

He told the attendees that the Cutler review of the National Innovation System:

...urges all Australian governments to adopt open publishing standards and creative commons licences. It argues that to "the maximum extent practicable ... research ... funded by Australian governments ... should be made freely available over the internet as part of the global public commons".

These are all recommendations dear to my heart. It is my firm view that publicly funded research should be widely available to other researchers, industry and the general public. It means full, open access to research data and outputs. If we are serious about boosting innovation, we have to get knowledge and information flowing freely.

If adopted, the review panel’s recommendations will require a rethink of the push we’ve witnessed in recent years to have researchers commercialise their own discoveries. The jury is now in on this policy, and I think it can safely be declared a failure.

The government is weighing these recommendations and will respond to them in an innovation policy white paper.

In support of his viewpoint Senator Carr went on to note: "Only a tiny number of patents held by a tiny number of institutions have made serious money anywhere in the world [and] Australian universities generally earn less than 1% of their income from royalties, patents and licences."

He went on to point out that the Productivity Commission, the OECD, and most recently Professor Mary O’Kane’s review of the Cooperative Research Centres Program all conclude that "asking researchers and research institutions to do their own commercialisation" is counterproductive.

In the OECD's view:  "commercialisation requires secrecy in the interests of appropriating the benefits of knowledge, whereas universities may play a stronger role in the economy by diffusing and divulging results," while  Professor O’Kane in referring to the CRC's programs says: "while the economic impact of the Program has been considerable, it has been primarily through end-user application of research rather than direct commercialisation."

And in Senator Carr's view: "The overzealous protection of intellectual property rights in this environment raises the cost of knowledge to the community... As a net importer of knowledge and ideas, Australia has everything to gain from the kind of “global digital commons” outlined in the Cutler report."

On March 18, 2005 in an open letter to the then federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson MP, Max Whitten, former Chief of CSIRO's Division of Entomology from 1981 - 1995 and Fellow of the Australian Academies of Science and Technological Sciences & Engineering wrote:

Having read the transcript of your address to the National Press Club of Tuesday 8^th March [2005] I write to express concern over your comments about the economic performance of the Australian National University.

You said: "ANU is outstanding at investigative driven research. Original research. Absolutely brilliant. Its commercial outcomes are not quite so strong. Only 0.2% of ANU's research revenues are actually attributed to licence revenues. It's about 300 thousand dollars. About the same as the University of South Australia in terms of commercialisation of research."

This statement, with its obvious implications, indicates a poor understanding of the various pathways whereby economic wealth can flow to a nation from publicly funded research. Direct licence revenue is only one pathway - and is often a very poor indicator of the true economic and social value of the 'absolutely brilliant' research you refer to.

May I suggest that you, and those advisers you draw upon for inspiration, read a paper delivered by Australian, Richard Newton*, who is Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in November 2002: Intellectual property creation, protection and dissemination in University - Industry - Government research collaboration – http://www.atse.org.au/uploads/Newton.pdf. The College of Engineering has created economic benefits worth trillions of dollars for the state of California, the United States and the world without depending on licence revenue as an indicator of good performance. How much better Australia would be if you could attract back to this country someone like Richard Newton to run an ailing institution like CSIRO, or to be Australia's Chief Scientist.

The case, is made very cogently by Richard Newton. Neither Robin Batterham nor Grahame Cook, two of your key advisors, seem to understand these simple issues which are manifestly apparent to most scientists, young and old.

Is it possible that a sea change in the governmental view of the role of university research -- not to mention publically funded research in general -- is about to occur?

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* Professor Richard Newton died of pancreatic cancer on January 2, 2007.