[LINK] Einstein's fridge an example for NICTA?

[Kim Holburn]

Australia has a very good record of innovation and invention, what it  
is not so good at is "exploiting" its inventions.  NICTA is at least  
an attempt to move into that area.

On 2006/Dec/11, at 8:28 PM, Chris Maltby wrote:
> The pharmaceutical industry is a case in point - in spite of the
> rhetoric about drug company R&D, most new drugs are derived from
> discoveries made in conjunction with research which is not product
> driven. The rate of discovery of new classes of drugs has dropped
> since the Reagan research doctrine was introduced - and research
> into areas considered non-commercial is now conducted largely by
> charitable foundations.

Does anyone have any references for this?  I remember reading about  
the change in University attitudes to research IP especially in the  
area of drug development changing the nature of research but I can't  
find it.

> NICTA is somewhat of a hybrid model - it has a strong focus on
> commercially valuable outcomes, but also allows some pure research to
> be funded as well. One of its most successful projects (in both ways)
> has produced a commercially valuable micro-kernel and at least one
> spin-off enterprise, while the codebase itself remains an open-source
> project.
>
> The other aspect which is noteworthy has been its close association
> with universities where it has been able to supplement the sparse
> research funding and provide post-doctoral research placements for
> local researchers as well as attracting people from other countries.
>
> The NICTA model may not be a substitute for increased research funding
> and funding for research universities and CSIRO with an increased
> emphasis on pure research, but in the absence of that it's a bit
> churlish to be too critical of the approach.

--
Kim Holburn
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Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961