AUT Enterprises part of new innovation network
The opportunity to network and collaborate has seen AUT Enterprises become a founding member organisation of KiwiNet, a collaboration and bold advancement for science and technology commercialisation in New Zealand.
The Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet) was launched this week to increase the scale and economic impact of science and technology commercialisation in New Zealand through an unprecedented level of national collaboration between universities and crown research institutes.
KiwiNet will act as a hub for commercialisation activities for its member organisations, as well as participants in the wider innovation system, as they work to create commercial outcomes from science and technology research.
AUT Enterprises
AUT Enterprises Ltd is the commercialisation vehicle of AUT. It is a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of AUT University, with a board of directors. The board is responsible for administering the equity portfolio resulting from AUT’s commercialisation activity as well as evaluating larger commercial projects.
Kevin Pryor, CEO of AUT Enterprises, says KiwiNet is a collaboration across a wide range of organisations with the same goals in mind.
“The outcome is about being able to better transfer ideas. It provides a wide range of networks of organisations. We’ll be able to use the group to be able to leverage our Intellectual Property (IP) portfolios much better.”
More about KiwiNet
As a national network with strong institutional and regional presence KiwiNet will reach deeply into the innovation systems and into NZ’s major industry sectors.
KiwiNet’s collaborative commercialisation model enables members to share resources, networks, best practise, IP and experience to create more commercially viable IP and start-ups from research based ventures.
The collaborative imperative is reinforced by David Hughes, group general manager commercial, Plant & Food Research.
“We need to encourage collaboration rather than competitiveness to maximise the commercialisation of research and create high value products with global demand.
The Crown Research Institutes (CRI) within KiwiNet provide a vital link to many of New Zealand’s key productive sectors.
CRIs and universities can better support these sectors by working together. CRIs bring deep knowledge of their sectors while Universities bring a diversity of experience.”
“It’s been great for us. We are one of the newest technology transfer offices and to be able to link into this network with vast resources has enabled us to get up and running quickly.”
Other founding members include WaikatoLink, Plant & Food Research, Otago Innovation Ltd, Lincoln University, AgResearch, University of Canterbury, Industrial Research Ltd and Viclink.