Commercialising innovation

Entrepreneurship is a huge part of an MBA. “Monash now has Commercialisation of Technology as a subject in our Global Executive MBA (GEMBA),” says Butler. “We undertake projects on behalf of companies who have genius boffins and add tremendous value by developing business models and go-to-market strategies.” When GEMBA students take their core learnings to their final global business project, they choose from digital transformation, advanced manufacturing or life sciences. “Students undertake live projects for businesses – from global corporations to early-stage startups – off the back of studying design thinking, strategy, commercialisation and entrepreneurship.”

The University of Sydney Business School’s Ford says he’s seeing more executives doing MBAs hungry to get

access to discoveries in science, health and engineering that are happening inside universities. “I run workshops, for example, in nanoscience. We pair groups of MBAs with scientific or research teams and the MBAs jump at that.” He says MBA students go on to sit on advisory boards or even become investors and co-founders. He believes the pandemic escalated breaking down the silos between academia and industry. “There’s a perception that universities have walls around them. Business schools can facilitate bringing together researchers and scientists. When scientists and researchers are going for government medical research grants, half of it has to be a business plan and they don’t know how to do that and they don’t have the time. That’s where collaborations are forming with our MBA students.”