Commercialisation of Academic Research in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Government view is that it has done enough on its part to promote the commercialisation of scientific research. This is but still against a background in which the number of patented commercialised research results has remained low hence the research sought to determine the problems faced by the researcher in commercialising their patented research results. To do this the research looked at knowledge level of the need to patent amongst researchers, effectiveness of Technology transfer offices on the number of patented research results, number of patented research that is industry driven and a comparison of the number of researchers who patented and commercialized their results to those who just commercialized. To do this the researcher targeted universities as they are sources of large numbers of potential innovations, for adequate information of patenting and invention development activities and their inventions can be developed and commercialized like any other inventions. Through the use of questionnaires, observation and interviews the researcher gathered data this was analyzed using SPSS. From the data gathered there is lack of collaborations which leaves all parties without understanding the needs of the other party and therefore the need for enough consultations to be done from either party when coming up with their own individual policies so that they feed into each other. Also, most institutions in Zimbabwe do not have experts in terms of IP to advise the researchers. Zimbabwe has not gained much from the commercialisation of its research results because of inadequacies in the Intellectual property spectrum from creation to management through to utilisation of creations, that is, national administration systems and utilisation.