A primer for commercialisation

Building community, developing careers, translating research.

 

Primer is our flagship programme. Primer is centred around weekly meetings that educate, encourage, and build a supportive community. These meetings place a strong emphasis on assisting scientists to engage with ideas and methodologies common in the industry, connecting researchers to scientists operating outside the university sector, and applying these lessons in real-world inspired scenarios.

Moreover, the relaxed nature of these meetings enables Primer to engage with scientists who are already curious about entrepreneurialism as well as those who have never considered the industry as a potential career path.

Four Pillars

Primer achieves this through a rotating schedule of events. These events form our pillars, and include; Education sessions, Guest sessions, Challenge sessions and Community sessions.

Education

The educational component of Primer focuses on giving scientists the skills and the knowledge to succeed in the commercial space, in an informal, relaxed and supportive setting.

The topics presented in Primer will mirror the topics presented in other programmes designed for life scientists such as CSIRO’s ON Prime programme and MIT’s SPARK, however, the topics will be adapted for the post-COVID world.

We currently plan to cover the following specific topics; however, the exact topics covered will be refined based on community feedback;

  • Business model canvas

  • Lean methodology

  • Project management (agile and scrum)

  • Active mentoring

  • Freedom to operate

  • How to actually start a business in Australia

Guests

To further support the goals of Primer, each month we will bring in a number of external speakers. These speakers will serve two functions; to further re-enforce the educational messages of Primer, and to provide real-world examples of scientists working outside of academia.

Challenges

(Practical Applications)

Challenge sessions are events that give Primer participants the ability to apply what they’ve learnt in an easy-going, relaxed environment.

These sessions are built around teams of scientists coming together and taking a scientific advancement, identifying a problem that would benefit from this technology and proposing a workable solution. From this, scientists are then asked to turn this concept into a commercial product and present this solution to the rest of the group.

Emphasis is placed on keeping the event lively and social. While this results in the occasional silly proposal, it reinforces the specific elements that must be considered when commercializing research and it helps a wider range of people engage with the idea of commercialization.

 

Community

Developing a culture of research that sees the value of entrepreneurship and commercialisation requires a community. This doesn’t spontaneously form after a workshop, it requires a long term commitment from an organisation. We recognise the importance of a community, and as a result, Primer places a significant focus on developing and maintaining a strong and supportive community.

We achieve this through community sessions. These sessions ensure that the Primer supports the existing culture of an institute while supporting the needs of the individual members of the group. In these sessions, the group has an open discussion to ensure that Primer is covering the areas they’re interested in. This commitment to transparency and openness supports the community building aspect of Primer. More importantly, these sessions also provide a forum for individual scientists to present ideas to the group for feedback