For many young academics, commercialisation feels like a distraction. The pressure is to publish, secure grants and earn tenure. Anything else can seem like a risk.
Yet the question is no longer whether research should have impact. It is how that impact is shown. Increasingly, funders, universities and society expect research to move beyond research to public use.
Commercialisation does not have to mean launching a start-up or chasing profit. For early career academics, it can begin much earlier and much more modestly. It starts with understanding where research meets real-world problems, and how that knowledge can travel safely from the lab to the world.
- The path from ‘eureka’ to patent
- How can we take research from the lab to the marketplace?
- When a scientist becomes an inventor
As a licensing adviser at our university’s knowledge transfer and commercialisation (KTC) unit, I have had many conversations with young faculty navigating that path. Their experiences show that commercialisation, when approached carefully, can strengthen research rather than compromise it.
The terminology and the incremental process
When young academics first hear about intellectual property (IP), they often lack a clear sense of what it covers. They don’t realise that different tools protect different outcomes. Patents safeguard inventions and technical solutions. Copyright protects creative works such as software code or courseware. Trademarks secure brand identity, including names and logos. Registered designs protect the look and form of a product. Trade secrets cover confidential business information that gives a competitive edge. Knowing these distinctions early helps academics choose the right protection, and advance their freedom for research and collaboration, rather than treating commercialisation as a single, all-or-nothing step.
It is also useful to differentiate a provisional patent from a regular patent, and the filing process with a single country from filing across the world.
An important note for academics is that the patent cannot be filed after the research paper has been published. For example, a young academic asked us about IP around his research on wearable-based human sensing, as it is an area with great commercialisation potential. As he was also keen to publish and wanted to protect his research, he filed an invention disclosure (ID) with our unit. An ID is a confidential document describing:
- the invention’s novelty and technical details
- potential applications and market opportunities
- inventor contributions and third-party obligations.
This early disclosure helped our team to assess patentability and, more importantly for him, plan IP protection before public disclosure, as journal publication jeopardises the rights.
We then went on to a comprehensive, systematic “patent prior art search” to understand if his invention was novel and shared relevant patent documents for his review and feedback.
The next step is assessing commercial potential. This starts with asking careful, structured questions. On the technology: is it genuinely distinctive, and does it solve a real problem? On the market: who would use it, is demand growing, and how strong is the competition? Development also matters. How mature is the technology, and how long would it take to reach use? Equally important is the inventor’s commitment. Are they prepared to champion the work beyond the lab?
Finally, the IP position must be clear. Without a freedom-to-operate status – which means that you are legally clear to make, use or sell a product or service in a specific market without infringing on existing products or services – even strong ideas can stall. This assessment protects you from costly lawsuits from other potential competing companies.
Our KTC team convened an invention disclosure review meeting with the external resource panel for the ID filed by the young academic. After a thorough evaluation, the panel recommended protecting the invention through a patent application in Singapore and a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filing to secure international coverage. This means that the potential licensee can use the PCT to file for protection in other countries. This matters if you are in a competitive kind of research; I know a scientist who filed one day later than another scientist and hence lost out on the patent protection.
Working with other institutes
What if you are collaborating across borders or across universities? The young academic in our example was doing exactly that. He had been collaborating with a university in Europe. The collaboration began as a research partnership focused on academic publications, but as the collaboration progressed, novel and commercially promising ideas emerged, warranting IP protection. At this stage, he turned to KTC to formalise IP arrangements.
This led to an agreement between Singapore Management University (SMU) and the foreign university to define background and foreground IP rights and designate the lead party for patent prosecution and commercialisation. To facilitate this understanding, KTC and the commercial arm of the other university signed an IP agreement, which ensures mutual support to advance research commercialisation for this strategic collaboration.
The young academic also explored two potential commercialisation pathways: licensing his IP to a well-established company from another territory or pursuing a spin-off in collaboration with his research collaborator at the foreign university. Our team in KTC offered comprehensive support, including drafting licensing terms and identifying strategic partners to scale commercialisation.
Getting on the funding radar
In addition to helping the academic navigate the commercialisation pathways, we also introduced him to a fund that provided critical gap funding and accelerated the transition of his innovation from research to market. To boost the visibility of his research, we also facilitated industry engagement meetings to catalyse licensing opportunities with potential partners.
It has been over a year since our first conversations on IP and we are in constant communication even though he has moved to another university. We have advised him that should he continue to build and commercialise on the IP of SMU, the commercial party will need to seek a right to the use of background IP from SMU.
He tells us, as a junior faculty, his main objective is to be tenured first, so profitability is not a big concern now, but he has a long-term plan for the commercialisation of his research. He just wants to remain open and feels it necessary to prepare himself.
One lesson he is constantly learning is how to say enough without jeopardising his research. Pro tip: highlight the importance of the problem and the excellence of your solution (or its impact), but try to hide as many technical details as possible.
Setting yourself up to make an impact
For young academics, a few principles matter. Start early. IP protection must come before publication. Work closely with your university’s knowledge transfer and commercialisation unit as they are your strongest ally on IP, licensing and industry engagement. Commercialisation is not a departure from academia, but an extension of it.
Focus on impact. Commercialisation is about translating knowledge into real-world solutions – an extension of academia rather than a departure from it. Be proactive and ask questions, understand the agreements you sign, and be prepared to stand behind your work as it moves into the world.
Tiam Lin Sze is a senior licensing adviser and adjunct lecturer in the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Singapore Management University.
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