Industry Engagement Training for Researchers
Helping researchers to share ideas, solve industry problems and increase the impact of their discoveries and innovations.
Training outcomes and benefits
Our comprehensive training empowers researchers to:
meet industry needs
determine business and customer problems and how their research can address them
find the right people
identify key stakeholders and potential industry partners
build lasting relationships
establish and maintain productive industry partnerships based on trust and mutual benefit.
use the right language
adapt their professional image and communication style for the business world, and learn the terminology of commercialisation
increase their profile
harness the power of social media to engage with industry and build a personal brand
know their worth
define their value proposition to create a compelling pitch to industry
Through improved industry engagement, universities find new avenues for research, collaborators with complementary expertise and additional funding sources, while enhancing career prospects for staff and students and extending the impact of their research.
We have carefully designed courses to meet the different needs of researchers at each career stage. The training can be further customised if desired.
THE INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT IMPERATIVE
Increasingly, the value of universities to society is measured by their success in transferring new knowledge and technologies to real-world applications that improve lives and build industries. When allocating research funding to universities, the Australian Government and grant bodies now prioritise engagement with industry and end users as much as research quality.
By increasing researchers’ confidence and foundation skills in industry engagement, our training reduces the burden on universities’ technology transfer staff, allowing them to focus on higher level support for commercialisation activities.
WHY CHOOSE GEMAKER?
Our inspiring facilitators are expert insiders from research, commercialisation and business, who bridge the research-industry gap with deep insight from extensive experience. Our training focuses on current, real-world examples, empirical knowledge and practical skills with immediate applications. Our engaging, interactive delivery mode combines presentations, discussions, hands-on exercises, role plays, reflections, pitching practice and detailed feedback.
After the course, we continue to support trainees with introductions to our extensive networks, access to useful resources and optional ongoing advice or mentoring. We invite alumni to join a LinkedIn support group and provide a monthly newsletter with commercialisation tips, events and opportunities.
Testimonials
I would absolutely recommend the program. It was very complete. One of the things I liked most was that the team that was delivering had very different backgrounds that complement each other – we had perspectives from industry and from a person who spent many years in research. The course was very example-based, not abstract and theoretical, but similar problems to what the researchers will go through, so they could relate to that. It was a very solid base. Researchers have the skills and capabilities to build from that base.
The importance of the emotional connection was something that really stuck out for me, because my instinct as a scientist is to talk information and facts, not necessarily thinking about how someone feels about something, or what would make them interested. That was really useful. Before this, I thought you had to have something ready to market and sell before you go and talk to industry, but it’s important to think about longer-term relationships and establishing those relationships early.
This workshop has truly been transformational. Since the workshop, I have honed my skills to better represent myself, my research team and the university as I engage with valuable external connections. Moreover, I have since had the opportunity to engage with a further two potential collaborators and was much more confident and skilled in my approach with successful outcomes on both counts. Having attended a number of workshops as part of my PhD program, this one stands out as having immediate effect – I only wish I could have done it sooner!
I would definitely recommend the course, both to researchers close to translation – with a product almost ready to go to market – but also to researchers still doing basic research. Putting a pitch together forces you to think about your value proposition: What can you add to the world? As scientists, we’re very dry. We think that when we talk to a company, we need to speak in statistics and money. From this course, it’s very clear that we also need to use emotions. That’s how people get involved and interested in what you have to say.
Feedback
%
of participants would recommend this training to others
%
of participants agreed that the facilitators were knowledgeable.
%
agreed that it has increased their confidence and ability to deliver a compelling pitch to industry
%
agreed that the training increased their understanding of how to engage with external partners
Industry Engagement Insights
Highlights from Science Meets Business
Every year, Science Meets Business brings together leaders in STEM and private industry to increase understanding and cooperation between these two complex sectors. In 2018, Science Meets Business focused on the theme ‘High Tech and Big Data’. The opening video...
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Networking not working? Here’s the smarter alternative
Who likes networking? I ask this routinely when training researchers in industry engagement. The response is always a collective groan. Maybe networking is fun for exceptionally extroverted people, but for most of us, it seems fitting that the word includes ‘work’,...
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How small business can have a big impact on STEM education
To sustain Australia’s STEM industries, businesses need to step up and help schools and teachers to educate and motivate the next generation of innovators. You don’t need to be a large corporation to have a positive impact on STEM education, as demonstrated by...
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