Instrument Development to Review Factors for Research Commercialization Study in Universities

Abstract

Recently, university commercialization has drawn growing attention to the role of the university as one of the drivers to local economic growth. Majority universities and other research institutes in Malaysia has established Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) to give support and guidance to the researchers in the bid to commercialize Research and Development (R&D) activities. The issues that are faced by current researchers are progressing and adapting to the role of developing and commercialising products while having lack of business acumen that hinders success in commercialization among the researchers. The objective of this study is to create a research model for commercialization study in universities and developing questionnaire to assess the issue in a holistic view. This study reviews the role of TTO, lists of incentives from the government to the researchers and factors that impedes the researchers’ output to the commercial bench. Contextual factor, Process factors and Organizational factors lead to the successful commercialization in the research institutes. A research model for impediment in commercialization is created and questionnaire for TTO and survey for researchers, are developed to investigate on the impediment factors that hinder success in the research commercialization among universities. The in-house developed instruments are modified based on massive literatures on commercialization to stimulate strategies and improvement of units from Planning to Execution role in the TTO. On another hand, researchers in the university will be able to plan and execute their research that will deliver scientific, technological, cultural and economic developments in addressing industrial, culture and social issues.