Innovation Training

At the "Innovation ACT" launch Thursday night there was mention of a "certificate in commercialisation". This is the ANU Graduate Certificate in Commercialisation (CTS), run by the College of Business and Economics:

The objective of the Graduate Certificate in Commercialisation is to equip students with the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to bring research-based ideas, inventions and innovations to market, and to contribute to Australia’s economic and social and environmental wellbeing through commercial benefits generate from enhanced delivery of innovation research based products and services. ...

Being a certificate, it requires the equivalent of one semester full time study, made up of semester length (13 week) courses (13 weeks) and intensive (7-10 week) units.

The course consists of:

• Integrating Business Project A – Entrepreneurship & New Venture Planning (MGMT7184 )
  
• Financial Reporting and Analysis (BUSN8181)
  
• Organisational Behaviour (MGMT7003)
  
• Commercialisation Law (ENGN6611)

The most interesting part of this is "Entrepreneurship and New Venture Planning":

Entrepreneurship and New Venture Planning introduces students to the process of identifying new business opportunities, researching and writing a business plan around those opportunities. The students also make an oral presentation of their business plan to an examiners panel – representing hypothetical investors. The students also prepare a personal learning report which reviews how the course has added to their understanding of general management issues. The course gives students practice in managing a group project over an extended timeframe and requires them to draw on all of the core disciplines of management – new concept development, marketing, financing, organisational development and strategy. In this way, the course integrates the learning delivered in specialised courses on these and other management disciplines. The course commences with a series of classroom lectures on principals and processes in opportunity identification, entrepreneurship and business planning. The lectures are reinforced with progress workshops where the students review the work they are doing on their plans with a faculty mentor.

This fits well with the Innovation ACT program, where teams progress a real projects trough stages.

There is some government funding government funding for the program which students can apply for ( Commonwealth Supported Places CSP).

There are a few limitations with the certificate. It appears to be designed for, and only available to, PhD and Masters by Research students at ANU. So postgraduate students doing coursework, including those doing my Green IT Strategies course could not do the certificate. Also there is no distance education e-learning option offered, so students are limited to being at the ANU campus in Canberra.