NICTA research is use inspired. That is, our research is inspired by the desire to develop research that results in technologies that are used by society. To achieve impact, NICTA takes a deliberate and strategic approach to ensure we understand the relevance of our research to external markets.
Understanding the external market
To understand these markets we:
- Attend and facilitate industry workshops
- Enable researchers and commercial staff to regularly appear at and visit trade fairs
- Facilitate, and are a member of, important domestic and international industry clusters
- Use market reports to understand current trends, winning technologies, barriers to market and market sizes
- Use market surveys to understand the commercial environment
- Engage experts where the market knowledge is not available in-house
- Take a disciplined approach to skills development and training through an internal commercial skills program
- Undertake regular searches and scanning of patent and academic literature to ensure we establish appropriate positions for our IP.
NICTA expects its researchers to formulate and regularly revisit an IP strategy for their research projects. Our researchers should be sufficiently IP-savvy to understand what aspects of their research are most likely to solve real-world problems, what should be protected and how that might be achieved. Researchers also gain an insight into the IP position of industry peers by searching patent and academic literature.
Channels to marketNumerous channels can be used to generate impact for our research. NICTA incorporates a mix of direct and indirect channels to help transfer our technologies to the market. These include: