Congratulations Dr Ramika Bansi

Ramika Bansi receiving her PHD at the graduation in April

Department: Public Management

Doctoral Study research topic : Commercialization of University Innovation in South Africa 

Globally, commercialization of innovation has increased and gained in interest by universities, industry and politicians. The idea of marketing innovation produced by universities is the practice embraced in most advanced economies. However, government investment in R&D has not generated the anticipated return in South Africa.  A gap was identified between innovation developed from publicly financed research and the failure to convert these findings into tangible outcomes.

The study embarked on investigating the current low rate of innovation commercialization at South African universities, with a view to increasing this rate. The main contributory factors were found to be a lack of support from university management, insufficient incentives for innovators, limited access to funding opportunities, institutional bureaucratic regulations and an inefficient system of decision making with regards to intellectual property.

Accordingly, the critical measures which can be modified in order to build university IP&TTO success are senior executive support for innovation and commercialization activity, a greater share of financial rewards to individual innovators and a streamlined decision making procedure concerning intellectual property assets.

Access the study via the DUT Open Scholar