ºÚ¹Ï³ÔÁÏÍø

What is commercialisation?

Commercialisation is one of the ways through which your research can be developed into a practical application to address an unmet need in the real-world. At its core, commercialisation is the process of taking research outputs and turning them into a product or service on the market.

How can I benefit from commercialisation?

Commercialisation is one of the most rewarding pathways to real-world impact. You could benefit from:

• reputational and professional development benefits
• opportunities to generate a REF impact case study
• access additional funding streams for your research
• engage in new collaborations, especially with external partners.

There’s also potential for personal financial reward or revenue generation too. Check out the University’s IP policy to find out about how funds are distributed between researchers and the University.

How to get started

The initial step of the commercialisation process is the identification of an unmet real-world challenge and development of a solution to address and overcome this. Sometimes the initial step happens around the other way, and a new discovery results in the realisation that this could have the potential to solve a real-world problem.

Have you identified an unmet need and a potential solution, or perhaps made a research discovery, or had a project idea which may have real-world potential? We would love to hear from you to discuss this further. Contact colleagues in the Knowledge Exchange and External Partnerships (KEEP) team through intellectualproperty@reading.ac.uk.

How we can help you

Colleagues in the KEEP team can provide guidance and can help you to:

• understand the business opportunity and map out a sustainable pathway for your project to maximise impact and value for you, your research, the University and society
• enhance the IP management, route to market, business opportunity-type sections of your translational funding application to give it a competitive edge
• get clarity and find answers to your IP queries, relating to engaging with external partners
• develop and progress your commercialisation project to a product or service.

Take a look at the different commercialisation pathways for further information.

Strategic drivers

The ºÚ¹Ï³ÔÁÏÍø has aligned its overarching strategic plan and impact strategy with strategic drivers from Government and funders for universities to realise greater socio-economic benefit from their research. There is an increasing emphasis on maximising impact created from research, with importance placed on commercial activities such as spinout formation. For example, through publications such as the  and , the former of which the University has institutionally signed up to implement these recommendations.