Pathways to Industry

31 March, 2021

A member of the Ligar team working on a natural products project.

2020 certainly threw a few curveballs for Aotearoa New Zealand’s research commercialisation ecosystem, but true to our collaborative culture, the MacDiarmid Institute still managed to host and share a wide range of Commercial Skill Building and Industry Interface activities.

We would like to thank our many partners who have generously given advice, time and support for our efforts to grow the success of our research entrepreneurs - the likes of KiwiNet, Return on Science, each of our member University Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), Callaghan Innovation, investors and deep tech entrepreneurs. Commercialising materials science requires not only leading edge scientific research, but also a diverse team of dedicated, well informed, ambitious founders and contributors along the journey.

Commercial Skill Building

We aim to ensure that our research community has access to all of the people, skills and support that they need on the challenging journey of deep tech commercialisation. With Covid-19 disrupting in-person activities, we jumped at the chance to initiate an online ‘Commercial Skill Building’ seminar series, in partnership with Auckland Uniservices and Return on Science. Beyond the lockdowns, we are continuing to host monthly online seminars for research entrepreneurs interested in the intricacies of intellectual property, capital raising, investor dynamics and accessing support from university technology transfer offices.