A Review of Technology Commercialization in Public Universities Malaysia and the Way Forward

Knowledge based economy is the main driver of growth and wealth creation across all industries in this 21st century. Knowledge based economy has contributed significantly towards the progress of technological innovation. The technological innovation which eventually leads towards technology commercialization is the result of successful scientific knowledge adoption along the innovation process. In a broader perspective, the innovation system includes public research institutions, government science ministries and research councils, certain enterprises and other private bodies and supporting infrastructure. Universities are always recognized as the agency of innovation and most of the researches are funded by government. However, most of the researches done by the public universities in Malaysia remained merely as basic researches or applied researches. The researches were not translated into commercial technologies which are beneficial towards the community. Besides that, most of the previous studies in technology commercialization have only covered universities, government and private firms in their research framework. The studies did not include the public community as of one the variable in their research framework. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a conceptual framework, inclusive of public community as one of the success factors that contributed towards technology commercialization in public universities within Malaysia.