On the afternoon of July 21, 2022, scientists representing a number of spin-off groups being incubated at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA) participated in a working session with the commercialization delegation of the Aus4innovation Program sponsored by the Australian Government. Attending the meeting were Mr. Don Scott-Kemmis - International expert on technology commercialization of the Aus4Innovation (SCIRO) program; Mr. Pham Van Dien - Former Director of Science and Technology Enterprise and Market Development Department, Ministry of Science and Technology; Mr. Le Minh, Ms. Phuong Linh - Center for Innovation and Response to Climate Change VCIC (Ministry of Science and Technology), Mr. Pham Tuan Hiep, Incubation Director of Hanoi Polytechnic Investment and Development Company (BK-Holdings) and Lab-to-market team of BK Holdings.

On the side of VNUA, there were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Viet Long – Director of International Cooperation Office; staff of the Center for Innovation, along with representatives of a number of Faculties, Research Institutes and spin-off groups, and some scientists participating in the program to support commercialization of Aus4innovation.

At the meeting, Assoc. Dr. Nguyen Viet Long introduced VNUA’s experiences in promoting the commercialization of research results as well as in developing VNUA’s Innovation Center and spin-off development programs.

Assoc. Dr. Nguyen Viet Long introduces VNUA’s experience in promoting the commercialization of research results

The delegation of experts on technology commercialization of the Aus4innovation Program at the meeting

Mr. Don Scott-Kemmis - shared international experiences on the commercialization of research results and some models of commercialization of agricultural research results of some universities (Australian National University and University of Queensland, etc.) and research institute (SCIRO). At the same time, he had a discussion with VNUA’s scientists about barriers and difficulties in commercialization and spin-off development. The two sides discussed and exchanged a number of solutions to promote the commercialization of the results of scientific research and suggested an intermediary organization model with the function of supporting the commercialization of research results and Aus4innovation's support in capacity building of intermediaries.

 

Assoc. Dr. Nguyen Duc Bach shares experiences and difficulties in commercializing research results

The Aus4Innovation (A4I) program is a bilateral development program between the Australian government and the Vietnamese government with the aim of supporting Vietnam in promoting the development of science, technology and innovation for socio-economic development. During Phase 1 (from 2019 to 2021), the Program supported training to improve capacity on technology commercialization for 10 VNUA’s scientists (from Faculty of Food Technology, Faculty of Natural Resources & Environment, Faculty of Agronomy, and Innovation Center) in Australia and Vietnam; organized 02 seminars on technology commercialization experience at VNUA with the participation of 50 scientists and mentored 02 research groups (the research group on food processing led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi Dinh and the research group on potato varieties led by Dr. Nguyen Xuan Truong) on technology transfer and commercialization.

 

The visit and working program of Mr. Don Scott-Kemmis - consultant of Aus4Innovation Program and the delegation of Market Development Department together with scientific enterprises and BK Holdings at VNUA ended successfully, helping to open up opportunities for extensive cooperation between the parties in the coming time, in which VNUA would coordinate with domestic and foreign experts to develop projects and submit them to the Vietnamese Government and international organizations for supporting the development of technology commercialization and the spin-off development in the field of agriculture.