Key points
- You need to test your hypotheses – not just in science, but in market too.
- Be open to exploration, and discover potential customers and sectors.
- Communication is king. Your research solution or technology cannot sell itself.
Imagine presenting a groundbreaking innovation. This novel discovery surpasses all current market offerings. It’s a game-changer. However, when you share this with key stakeholders – industry leaders, investors, or potential customers – their response is lukewarm.
This is the challenge many researchers experience when trying to translate their ideas into impact. Whatever pathway that takes, it is crucial to first discover and articulate why people should care.
Our nine-week ON Prime program helps researchers do exactly that. Expert facilitators and mentors guide teams to develop a deeper understanding of the people who benefit the most from their research. The next step is to sharpen their skills to engage with that audience.
Aaron Elbourne is from the Antimicrobial Eutectogels team.
"Working in your scientific bubble in the laboratory, you have assumptions that may be right and may be wrong," Aaron said.
"But you need to talk to people that are actually experiencing the issues you’re trying to fix. You have to learn where you need to be moving and let the market dictate it, not the other way around."
Lesson 1: Test your hypotheses
Let’s go back to basics: hypotheses are created to be tested. Your research may have the potential to provide life-changing data on health issues. Perhaps it could create revolutionary change in industry processes – saving vast amounts of time, effort and money.
While you might have an idea of the challenges your research can solve, your assumptions need to be validated.
"Your parents, your best friend, the other researchers might say 'Yeah, that's a great idea!'. But they aren't the people buying. You need to validate your research...we're talking about the customers, those with a need-state." - Selena Boyfield
ON Program Delivery Team
This means going out into the market and speaking with the people your research could affect. Rather than tell customers about the solution being created, participants learn how to ask open-ended questions. This helps identify what is difficult for people, what they would pay money for and what they would change habits to fix.
The main lesson for researchers is that people care less about the solution and more about the problem troubling them. Only where there is a problem felt do people want a solution.
ON Prime teams are equipped with the skills to conduct over 100 of these conversations – customer interviews – during the program. These conversations are critical for insights, ensuring your solution makes a positive impact. These insights often encourage research teams to think more broadly or identify a need to pivot their idea. They may end up solving a different problem entirely.
"In the first couple of weeks in ON Prime, when we started to have conversations with stakeholders, they told us that our ideas about wound healing were valid, but it wasn’t their main concern," Aaron said.
"By having these conversations, we’ve been able to open the door to new avenues. We’ve been able to disprove a couple of our assumptions and we’ve been able to pivot into new areas which we wouldn’t have been able to without ON Prime."
Lesson 2: Be open to exploration
We all exist within systems. Your lab is a system, your research organisation is a system, your community is a system.
If we want to create change, we first need to understand the space we want to influence, along with its key players. Who they are, how they operate and who might care about your research reveals customers, industry partners and even funders.
It's important to be open to exploration, even if you have a specific market or system in mind. This may not be where the problem is most strongly felt or needed. As you learn more about the needs of the players in the system – and how these different players are connected – your map will evolve over time.
Muhammad Usman is a Quantum Shield team member.
"When we started the ON Prime program, our main focus was in the defence sector," Muhammad said.
"During the ON Prime program, we found that our technology could have implications for many sectors outside of defence, such as security-sensitive applications in airports or healthcare. That has really broadened the scope of our technology."
Lesson 3: Communication is king
Most people would not understand the science behind a brilliant invention or process improvement. This includes the stakeholders you’re engaging for funding, partnerships and product uptake.
The truth is, they don’t need to. They simply need to understand what problem you’re solving and why it is important.
A great solution or new technology might seem like it will sell itself. However, if the problem it solves is not articulated effectively, then the value it holds will be missed.
ON Prime provides teams with mentoring and tools to better convey the problem that they are seeking to solve. The findings from their customer interviews are a key element of this improvement process.
Original: "Novel reusable sorbents developed by the Zhang Group at UQ can be used to capture PFAS rapidly and selectively from aqueous liquids, including drinking water, wastewater, industrial process water, and groundwater. To be more specific, this invention is a block copolymer ion-exchange resin with outstanding and selective absorption of PFAS, that are widespread and persistent organic pollutants of significant concern. Proof-of-concept results show that the level of sorption of PFAS is superior to other existing technologies (e.g. over 30 times in sorption capacity and 10 time faster in sorption kinetics). In addition, the designed sorbent is tolerant of other dissolved species and the polymers are highly selective for PFAS. Release of the PFAS from the material is a simple manner and the materials are fully reusable." Improved: "A large group of man-made fluorinated chemicals has become widely present in the water we drink, the food we eat, and the air we breathe. These toxic substances are linked to several human diseases, including cancer. Local councils and farmers are struggling to remove these chemicals from landfill and compost leachate. We have now developed a new sorbent that is ten times more efficient and five times more cost-effective for removing these chemicals from leachate than conventional technologies. This will significantly benefit local councils in their pollution control efforts and assist farmers in meeting regulatory compliance."
In turn, these skills help attract more resources that allow teams to transform their research from an idea into real-life impact.
Ben Fitzpatrick is a member of team Biohotspot.
"It’s really important that we learn how to communicate what we do in a way that everybody understands," Ben said.
"There’s no point being a super complex scientist if you can’t actually communicate the importance of what you’re doing. ON Prime’s helping us to communicate better with clients and stakeholders in the conservation sector."
Putting learning into action
At the core of the ON Prime program is the opportunity for curious researchers to discover the impact of their research. You might decide to explore translation opportunities further, or head back into the lab to explore different research with a new mindset.
Either way, the program creates a long-lasting impact on participants’ careers and their approach to innovation.
Join us to bring more great Australian research from mind to market.