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Market Validation
business2 NICTA is committed to finding practical, real-world uses for its research. To increase the likelihood of our research achieving significant impact, NICTA gives researchers the necessary resources to quantify the impact of their research on a particular market. This is done through the 'market validation' phase of NICTA's commercialisation process. See also NICTA's investment model.

NICTA awards two types of market validation grants:
  • Market Demand Validation Grants of up to $50,000
  • Proof-of-Concept Validation Grants of up to $100,000.

Market Demand Validation Grants

Market Demand Validation Grants allow researchers to engage with the appropriate markets to test the opportunities for their research.
A Market Demand Validation Grant provides additional project resources to help researchers better understand how to achieve significant commercial impact in the market. The grant helps NICTA project teams:
  • Succinctly define the problem facing end users and the market opportunity
  • Determine the magnitude of the end-user problem
  • Investigate current methods used to manage the problem
  • Gauge the size of the opportunity from solving the problem.
Market Demand Validation Grants are also frequently used to fund:
  • Attending or presenting at industry and trade conferences
  • Travelling to meet with prospective customers or commercial partners
  • Buying or subscribing to specialist industry analyst reports
  • Engaging independent third-party advisors with detailed domain knowledge.

Proof-of-Concept Validation Grant

Proof-of-Concept Validation Grants are designed to enable researchers to develop their project to a stage where they can demonstrate its technical capability in a form meaningful to a potential customer or partner.

A Proof-of-Concept Validation Grant helps a project team build a prototype which is sufficiently complete to be used as a tool to elicit detailed feedback from potential customers and partners on issues such as:
  • Minimum functionality improvement thresholds for widespread adoption
  • Customer switching costs, barriers and training needs
  • Effort required to integrate the new product into existing work practices
  • Suggested improvements and development priorities.
Proof-of-Concept Validation Grants are also frequently used to fund additional resources such as:
  • Hardware and software engineers
  • Systems architecture experts
  • Graphic and industrial designers
  • Interface and workflow designers.