The Commercialisation of University Research Outputs: A Review of Literature

Abstract

Universities are presently experiencing rapid transformation, shifting emphasis from pure teaching to equal their strength in teaching and research to increase their capacity to commercialise. The universities are not only accountable for teaching and research accomplishments but they are expected to commercialise their research outputs into marketable products and services. This paper identifies and ranks the factors that are influencing the commercialisation of university research outputs. A Systematic Review of Literature (SLR) was made on 59 articles that were published between 2000 and 2022. The findings indicate that the significant factors influencing the commercialisation of research outputs included; collaboration/networking, research funding, regulative factors both by government and university, entrepreneurial culture, availability of research infrastructure, the competence of researchers, motivation and attitude of researchers, transformational leadership culture, technology suitability for commercialisation, protection of Intellectual Property Rights, the effectiveness of Technology Transfer Office (TTO) and closeness to industry. Keywords: Commercialization, Factors, Research outputs, Systematic literature review.