Transforming Agriculture Research into Commercialisation : Experience of Universiti Putra Malaysia

One of the major goals of any high impact research and development is an overall improvement in the well-being and sustainable quality of life through innovations. As universities continuously disseminate innovations from R&D activities, many prototypes and lab-scale products, whether tangible or intangible, can be made available for public use. The success of bringing these innovations to the marketplace depends on the quality and capability of the technology transfer office to lead different types of activities, engagements, negotiation and inclusiveness towards fulfilling the needs of commercialisation partners and the market. This paper presented a general overview of transforming research output into commercialisation in the context of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Throughout this paper, different commercialization channels, the roles of technology transfer offices and multiple agencies are further discussed with a special focus on agricultural innovations and technologies. This review contributes to both academic and agricultural industry research, development and commercialization activities by illustrating current innovation produced by UPM and industry-university collaboration, conducted at a leading agriculture university.