Episode 59 - The C is for more than Commercialisation with Jane Fitzpatrick

I had the chance to follow up with Jane Fitzpatrick on her powerful closing remarks at a panel session at the National Innovation Policy Forum last year. Jane is CEO of the Australian National Fabrication Facility, and her organisation sits at the intersection of science, innovation, translation and market pull. Given the challenges we’ve been highlighting on the podcast around the industry pull, and the recent Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD) report, Ambitious Australia, it seemed a great time to build on her comments last year.

We opened a little unusually, in that we started where we left off from Podcast 55 (2025 National Innovation Policy Forum Review: Coordination and Translation) with Jane O’Dwyer, revisiting Jane’s compelling observations around skills and experiences for tech transfer, and how these contrast with the training and, at times, interests of researchers. It was interesting to hear how ANFF had sought to build on the engagement with its client base and ecosystem, seeking to provide tech transfer support.

The delivery of tech transfer support through ANFF-C was discussed and the ‘C’ stood for more than commercialisation, which I saw as really insightful and an important broadening of what happens in tech transfer beyond the focus on commercialisation. I reflected on the moving of a cohort of researchers from ‘unconscious incompetence’ to ‘conscious incompetence’ around tech transfer.

Jane then drew a contrast between Research Infrastructure (of which ANFF is considered as part of the  National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), and Technology Infrastructure, which she noted is an emerging concept in Europe as a step up in scale, where contract manufacturing and larger production runs are needed, but the business case for a full scale (owned and operated) manufacturing facility may not yet stack up. We explore how that might play out in Australia and the need to focus on areas of strategic importance – like the six pillars that the Ambitious Australia report has offered.

We spent some time exploring the opportunity that quantum presents for Australia, as an example of strategic focus. Jane drew in a few ecosystem and sovereign examples of where strong strategic commitment has established long-term competitive advantage. In exploring the quantum opportunity, Jane shared the breadth of applications that exist now and emerging, comparing it to the journey ‘nanotech’ has been on where, now, it is mainly about applications and problem solving rather than fundamental science.

We spent some time discussing the demand side challenges for innovation and tech transfer. Reflecting on the culture of SMEs in Australia, we explored how SMEs constantly innovate to solve challenges but just don’t necessarily call it innovation! Jane further contends that we have not done the demand side of innovation well, as problems don’t necessarily get brought to researchers or startups to find solutions—these cohorts don’t always, perhaps even rarely, position themselves as problem solvers, so how do they get found and connected? This brought to mind Katherine Woodthorpe’s insights from Episode 17 where she asked, ‘Where is the front door?’

We closed our discussions around building networks and connections to help anticipate and address industry challenges. The networks in the NCRIS community are continuing to strengthen, and I reflected back on a question of Andy Shafer’s (who joined us on Episode 36), ‘How can we help you be successful?’