Commercializing tourism research: the potential, perils and paradoxes for researchers

ABSTRACT

The commercialization of research outputs is now a core strategic aim of many universities. While the activity has received a vast amount of support from governments, there are very few examples of commercialized tourism research outputs that have originated from the university sector. This paper argues that this is largely due to tourism programs being located with disciplines such as the social sciences and business departments, whose engagement with the commercialization agenda has been low. Using the lived experiences of the researcher’s involvement in a tourism research product called Tourism Tracer, this paper delves into the reasons for this low engagement. It argues that funding research culture, philosophical issues, peer support and intellectual property issues form barriers within the social sciences sector that challenge tourism researchers’ engagement with commercialization. Ultimately it argues that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to commercialization overlooks disciplinary differences and that further support is needed if engagement with commercialization by tourism researchers is to be full supported.

KEYWORDS:

• Commercialization
• knowledge transfer
• impact
• technology transfer
• community

Introduction

Over the past 5 years, there have been significant shifts in the strategic priorities of many universities. This has involved a move away from publications being the measure of success, to research income, knowledge transfer, engagement and impact being considered core priorities. One activity that sits within this agenda is commercialization of research, whereby research outcomes are introduced to the market for application (Gassmann & Enkel, 2004). Commonly, commercial activities within the university environment include patenting ideas, the creation of start-ups, and the licencing of ideas. Examples of commercialized research ideas that have emerged from universities include black box flight recorders, Wi-Fi, bomb detection units and COVID-19 vaccines.

The rationale behind universities’ engagement with the commercial agenda centres around a move towards a neoliberal approach to management. In the early 2000s, universities were commonly critiqued for struggling to create linkages between their researchers and industry. At the same time, a decreased level of funding from the government forced universities to look for alternative sources of income (Harman and Harman 2004). More recently, to stimulate growth and offset reductions in government research funding, sizeable incentives from governments have been created for universities that engage in commercialized research output. Commercialization can be highly lucrative; in Australia in 2015 the income from licences, options and assignments from universities, medical research institutes and research agencies reached $183 million in total (Department of Industry, Innovation and Science 2016). This is minute compared to other countries (Davern 2021); the Hebrew University of Jerusalem alone makes over $2 billion per year from the sale of its research products across all disciplines (Dodd 2017). To tap into this potential income source, significant efforts have been made within academia to support commercialization. Many universities now have technology transfer and commercialization units within their institutions. There is also government support; for example, in Australia in early 2022 the Prime Minister announced the University Research Commercialisation Action Plan, worth AUD$2.2 billion, to further encourage university innovation and commercialization outcomes (Taylor 2022).

Despite a rapidly growing and lively debate on knowledge transfer and the impact agenda (see Scott and Ding 2008; Beesely 2008) far less discussion has been focussed on the issue of commercialization, despite issues being raised around the agenda. While there are large amounts of funding flowing from the government to the university sector, little is known amongst academic researchers on what commercialization involves and how they might engage with it. This was the case for the primary author of this research paper. It has been suggested that if knowledge that is generated from tourism research is to be used, mechanisms to manage knowledge must be considered (Scott and Ding 2008). This is particularly acute for disciplines such as the social sciences, business and humanities where tourism researchers are most commonly employed. These disciplines have traditionally focussed on uncovering and exploring ideas, methods and concepts, rather than developing tangible products typically associated with disciplines such as engineering, IT and chemistry. However, the impact and commercialization era that we now work within has changed this. Tourism researchers in all disciplines are now regularly being encouraged to pitch ideas, create impact, and look towards commercialization of their research creations.

Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomena of commercialization and particularly its potential and pitfalls, for tourism researchers. Using the lived experience of the authors experience with commercialization, this paper seeks to develop a suite of challenges and recommendations for tourism researchers within the university sector.

Defining commercialization and technology transfer

Commercialization is defined in different ways by differing researchers; it is often referred to as technology transfer. Broad definitions conceptualize commercialization as an activity that has a market value, is regarded as useful and may involve a partner from the industry (Gascoigne & Metcalfe, 2005). Under this definition, this may include research consultancies, education and training, productions, and publications. Recently, more narrow definitions have been adopted, and commercialization in the academic sector has been defined as research output that results in patents, joint ventures, start-ups, spin-off companies and licence agreements (Razak and Murray 2017). It is this definition that this paper uses.

According to the Australian Research Council (ARC 2022), commercialization is one of a suite of actions that demonstrates research impact. It is often regarded as one of the ‘ultimate’ forms of impact, whose agenda is now at the forefront of many universities’ strategic plans (Rasmaussen, Moen, and Guldbrandsen 2006). This new priority has been lauded by some disciplines as a welcome addition as it speaks to much of their core work; the impact agenda values much of the work that business schools have been doing when working directly with businesses and industry partners. But for other disciplines such as philosophy, human geography and sociology, where tourism programs also lie, the impact agenda creates challenges, as their core research work is not typically grounded in working with industry partners and ‘end-users.’ At the level of the individual researcher, this issue is also significant; the impact agenda has been critiqued by Hammersley (2014) for assuming that research can be measured by practical outcomes. It has also been critiqued as anti-intellectual given its focus on knowledge for a specific purpose rather than the creation of knowledge for its own sake (Fennell 2022).

Challenges to commercialization have also been recognized, including university systems being unable to cope with the processes, a lack of time for academics to engage in commercial activities, and difficulties navigating processes and procedures. Indeed, commercialization is often thought of as non-core business, particularly as it is costly and complex to execute (Aziz et al. 2012; Razak and Murray 2017). It is not surprising therefore that the potential for the contribution of the humanities, arts and social sciences to the commercialization agenda has been described as under-recognized (Gascoigne & Metcalfe, 2005). Given the shift in government priorities, Davern (2021) argues there is an urgent need to equip our researchers and PhD students with knowledge and skills regarding communication with industry, knowledge transfer and partnership development skills.

Within tourism, business, and social science literature, there have been few attempts to discuss the implications and issues of the commercialization agenda. One notable absence in the literature is the use of case studies, lived experience and empirical research that demonstrates the barriers and benefits to this activity. To tackle this dearth, the following section will detail the experience of a tourism project that was commercialized while the author of this paper worked firstly in a business school before being transferred to a school of social sciences, where they are now located.

The case of Tourism Tracer

Tourism Tracer was developed in 2016. The project team consisted of six academics from different disciplines: business, social sciences, human geography, spatial sciences and economics. None of the team had experience with the commercialization of research. The team members designed an app that was equipped to collect survey data and sync the data with location-based Global Position System (GPS) data, which would then be visualized in a highly attractive and user-friendly data dashboard (see Hardy et al. 2017: Eccleston, Hardy, and Hyslop 2020; Hardy, Birenboim, and Wells 2020). All the IT work was undertaken by a local IT firm.

Tourism Tracer received a large amount of attention when it launched in 2016 as it was able to track tourists, with their consent, every 2 seconds, to within 10 metres of their location. It resulted in data that could show precisely where tourists went while visiting a destination, for the entire duration of their stay. As a result of the large amounts of national and international exposure that the project received, the project team was approached by their universities’ Business Development and Technology Transfer team. The intellectual property that was created during the project was disclosed, which meant that the specific contributions of the team to every aspect of the projects’ creation were documented and the parameters around what was, and what was not created as a part of the project was documented. For example, the project produced code for the app that synced the data, reduced battery life and did not take up much storage on users’ mobile phones. This was a tangible product that was created during the project’s inception. The project team also used the collective expertise of the various members of the team (including experts in methodologies, tourist behaviour and technology use) to design the app and a recruitment strategy. The latter was described as ‘know-how’ and formed a key yet largely intangible aspect of the creation. The percentage contribution of each researcher on the team was then negotiated between the team members; this process was crucial as royalties would be divided up according to this process. Following this, a local tourism provider who had expressed interest in the project was granted a non-exclusive licence for the project. The spirit of the proposed agreement was then negotiated; it was designed so that the research team could continue to use Tourism Tracer, as well as the licence holder, but that the licence holder would make reasonable endeavours to provide data to the project team to continue their research and build the profile of the project. It was envisioned that research undertaken by the research team would be funded by the royalties earn from the licence agreement.

The commercialization of Tourism Tracer resulted in many benefits. It is one of the few projects to be commercialized within the social sciences or business schools within Australia and received a significant amount of attention in the media, academia and international tourism organizations. Several members of the team were promoted because of the ‘impact’ of the project. However, there have also been significant challenges. The team was nervous about the concept of commercialization and had many internal discussions about its worth and the impacts that commercialization may have upon future research opportunities that were reliant on the Tourism Tracer technology. As few examples existed in the business or social sciences faculties, the team was unable to contact others to learn from their experiences. Eventually, the decision was made to proceed. It was then that challenges arose. Following the signing, a key member of the tourism industry made a media statement that the university was turning money that was meant for public good into a commercial venture. This highlighted incorrect public assumptions around the funding of the project. Later, it became apparent that the nature of the legal agreement meant that the university and licence holder were effectively put in competition. Further, the team faced some misunderstandings from colleagues (a commercialized product was unusual in the social sciences, business school and spatial science programs where the team members were located)- some believed it involved the creation of a side business that would result in personal financial benefits to the researchers. The nature of the app as a research tool and a product of the university also posed issues. For example, the app was branded as a university product, but ethical research conduct procedures that are required by universities in Australia are far more stringent than those applied in the private industry.

Learnings from the Tourism Tracer project

Conduits for engaging in commercialization

Previous research has outlined the necessary conditions for successful commercialization, including the need for a productive idea-generating research environment; the use and application innovation strategies (West & Bogers, 2017); and support from and involvement with innovation stakeholders (Perkmann et al., 2013). In the case of Tourism Tracer, the funding body that supported it was equipped with skills in legal contracts, commercialization and the funding itself allowed the lead researchers to be given teaching relief, thus releasing them from teaching obligations. The first two years of the project were spent designing, testing and implementing the technology, thus full advantage taken of these resources. What was highly significant therefore, was the time and resources that the team was given to develop the idea.

Importantly, the Tourism Tracer case highlighted additional factors that acted as conduits for researchers to engage productively in the process of commercialization. One was money. Social science and business research is notoriously underfunded compared to the physical sciences. The initial project funding for Tourism Tracer was AUD$500,000 – this is rare for those in tourism; business and social science research. The funds allowed for research assistants, travel for meetings and attendance at conferences to test the concept in the design stage, for a research assistant to assist with the marketing, and then media support once the project began and gained traction. This was needed because by the end of the first year, this traction was so intense that over 40 media stories, interviews and television stories had been carried out on the project.

Barriers

The Tourism Tracer project also highlighted the barriers to its uptake and implementation. Some were issues that relate to the nature of research in a non-science context and others were ones that may apply to individual researchers. One significant barrier was knowledge. Tourism Tracer was developed by a team whose members were completely untrained in this space. What became apparent was that the research team did not understand commercialization, and consequently they did not set out to design a commercial product. Despite involvement in sessions on options for commercialization, what was missing from this process were introductory sessions using real-life examples on what commercialization was, how it could be applied to projects and what the pros and cons of the process for researchers. At the time that commercialization became an option for the team, it was noted that other teams who had funding from the same funding body (and whose projects were based in the physical sciences) had far greater levels of knowledge, awareness and experience with commercialization. Thus the project highlighted disciplinary differences in knowledge regarding commercialization and the need to ensure the right mix of team members. The team reached out to academic staff within the university who had experience with commercialization in the sciences and this provided some support. However, the intangible nature of an app that was essential as a data collection method meant that some queries were unable to be answered by those in the sciences.

Peer support

During the process of the commercialization of Tourism Tracer, the team explored the possibility of peer support beyond the sciences and ultimately the team’s university. This proved very difficult as very few teams from within the business school or social sciences had been through the process of commercialization in Australia. At the time of writing this article, a desktop review confirmed this dearth: of the extensive list of projects featured on the University of Queensland UniQuest web page (regarded as a leader in commercialization in Australia) only 2 were from the social sciences. Yissum, the Hebrew Universities’ commercial arm, listed 349 technologies that have been developed by their researchers. Of these, 10 were classified as being in the social sciences. Peer support is regarded as an essential component of successful research endeavours, academic career progression (Merga and Mason 2021) and the support of early adopters (Armstrong 2019). The ability to learn from others’ experiences has neutral discussions about options and be able to openly explore the option to not commercialize is where this mechanism becomes crucial, particularly when researchers lack experience.

Legal support

While university legal teams are designed to support contracts, researchers and institutions, a conflict of interest occurs at the time that the contract is formulated. University lawyers will want to negotiate the highest possible royalties for the university, but it is in the best interest of researchers to argue for the opposite. Legal peer support is needed at this stage to read the contract and negotiate terms and conditions. In the case of Tourism Tracer, the commercial agreement was designed so that the licensee could engage in contracts that used the technology, thus they could collect and visualize the data. The proposed advantage for the research team was that the licensee could engage in straightforward contracts which would allow the university to improve the technology and push the boundaries of the technology. Moreover, the spirit of the agreement was that when the licensee collected that data through contracts that it won, they could make that data available to the research team, thus supporting PhD students, training and ensuring the ongoing momentum of the project. As mentioned earlier, the contract stipulated that data should, use ‘reasonable endeavours’ to ensure that the data they collected would flow to the university. However, the lack of the strength of the word ‘must’ meant that the industry partner was not required to provide the data, and their clients were not willing to share data, thus no data ever flowed to the research team.

Along with data flow, those engaging in commercialization must consider the ethical use of data beyond specific projects. Under the Tourism Tracer data flow model, participants in the original study were required to know what they were giving consent for. Commonly, consent is given by individuals for their data to be used in one single study. If the licensee allowed the university to receive data where consent was not gained for data to be used for different means and by the university in the future, this could potentially breach the form of consent given by participants. Consequently, for a commercial data arrangement to work, licences need to ensure that consent is gained correctly before it can legally be allowed to flow through to the university.

Intellectual property and the social sciences

One of the first learnings that the Tourism Tracer team had to make was around the intellectual property (IP) that they had created. This was undertaken through an IP Disclosure Form, where the contribution of each member of the team was determined in terms of their contribution and percentage. During this process, the differences between the physical and social sciences became apparent. For the social sciences, researchers’ unique, protectable contributions are harder to define as there is a less clear line between know-how and unique creations. Black (2020) argues that this know-how is not always able to be protected by intellectual property laws, such as Copyright which only protects printed words.

Intellectual property ownership presents a further structural challenge to the social sciences as it differs vastly between countries and institutions. It has been claimed that legal ownership has had a major impact on how different countries have approached technology transfer (Harman and Harman 2004). For example, in Australia, under common law, an employer owns the intellectual property created by employees during their employment (Christie et al. 2003, 3–13; Harman and Harman 2004). There are two exceptions to this: the University of Melbourne changed its intellectual property statue in 2001 so that academics have legal rights to their intellectual property, and the University of Technology Sydney gives shared ownership of intellectual property to both the university and the academic (Christie et al. 2003; Harman and Harman 2004). Conversely in Sweden, the opposite exists – intellectual property belongs to academics within universities; this has resulted in many Swedish universities not being as motivated to be involved in commercialization research (Harman and Harman 2004). The challenge for universities wishing to engage in commercialization is to educate academics as to where intellectual property lies and outline the implications of commercialization upon their future use of the research they have created. In the case of Tourism Tracer, the license meant that data flow did not continue through to the research team, thus limiting their ability to collect large and diverse data sets. Moreover, given the precarious nature of academic work, there is a need for clarity from the outset as to what would happen if the academic chooses to leave the institution, but would like to continue to work on the project.

Financial challenges

The financial aspect of commercialization also presents challenges (Black, 2020). Commercialized products can deliver researchers with funding through a variety of ways – when their patents are used, when they are pivoted into small businesses, or when their licences produce royalties. When this money enters the university, the institution takes a cut – referred to as indirect costs – to fund infrastructure costs. In the case of Tourism Tracer, 50% goes to the inventors, 20% to the College and 30% goes to the central university. Davern (2021) argues that this practice must change as commercialization is now a federal government strategic priority for research and universities receive funding to reward them when they commercialize research products. The author points out that in Australia for example, indirect costs are not taken from competitive research funding sources such as the Australian Research Council. Yet typically institutions claim up to 50% of commercial research income. The author goes on to argue that this represents a lack of true investments in research and development as well as its true worth in terms of attracting government support. Arguably the infrastructure costs for non-physical science research products (which are often intangible) are likely to be significantly lower than those in medicine, pharmaceutical and engineering who require labs and equipment for developing their products. This may well provide a far greater significant incentive for researchers to engage in commercial activities.

Reflections on the lived experience

The process of commercialization is not easy. It differs for each project and within the social sciences it is not a common practice. However, it has many advantages – it gives researchers the chance to understand the ‘use’ of their research creations to industry partners. It can, if executed well, bring financial benefits that allow research teams to grow. And it offers a means through which researchers can see their work ‘make a difference’ within their field. However, as with any new process, it is also fraught with challenges and barriers for researchers in tourism. The lived experience of Tourism Tracer has provided many learnings for both the research team and the university. It is hoped that these learnings can be taken and ultimately used by those who wish to engage in this practice in the future.

Discussion

It has been argued that in this current era of a knowledge-based economy, the sharing of knowledge and research plays an integral role as a driver for innovation (Scott and Ding 2008; Beesely 2008). Black (2020) argues that transformational approaches are needed to further the social sciences’ involvement in the ‘impact agenda’. Given most tourism research takes place within the social science realm this is highly relevant. Furthermore, the same may be said for commercialization – a core output within the impact agenda. One of the key issues that requires consideration is the potential mismatch between institutional aspirations and researchers’ aspirations. The commercialization agenda has been lauded by some disciplines as a welcome addition as it speaks to much of their core work. For example, engineering, advanced manufacturing and pharmacy have the creation of products as part of their core business. But for disciplines such as philosophy, business, economics, human geography and sociology (where many tourism researchers are employed) the commercialization agenda represents a significant shift in their work. The Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (2005) argued that there are six interconnected barriers to commercialization. These barriers are largely centred around a lack of understanding and institutional barriers and include: a lack of understanding of the value of social sciences research by industry; a lack of understanding of how to work with industry amongst researchers; a dearth in business skills amongst social sciences researchers; institutional deficiencies in their ability to facilitate social sciences research commercialization; a lack of incentives for social science researchers to engage in commercial work and low levels of industrial R&D investment in the social sciences when compared to industrial R&D expenditure on science. All these issues may be related to tourism research in a non-scientific manner. Further to this, the discourse of commercialization poses issues. Commercialization is often aligned with the notion of Research and Development (R&D) which has strong connotations with scientific development. In the UK, the non-physical sciences receive no mention within the definition of R&D, which is defined as: An advance in science or technology means an advance in overall knowledge or capability in a field of science or technology (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills 2010) Conversely, the OECD (2015, p. 378) definition is more encompassing, defining R&D as ‘ … creative and systematic work undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge – including knowledge of humankind, culture and society – and to devise new applications of available knowledge.’ Further work is needed to de-couple R&D from its implied scientific connections to make the process and option of commercialization more attractive to researchers in the social sciences and tourism. There is also a significant need for universities to be more cognizant of the needs and requirements of social sciences in commercialization.

Significantly, this commentary has demonstrated that in addition to the aforementioned issues, more nuanced issues exist with regards to commercialization of tourism research. The desire of researching to push the boundaries of knowledge, create theory and to contribute to the ‘public good’ forms the motivation for many tourism researchers in the social sciences. Their core research work is not traditionally grounded in the creation of products for ‘end-users’, and importantly this should not be forced upon them. Unlike commercialization that is driven by a desire to make a profit (Andreeva and Kianto 2011), within the social sciences and HASS disciplines there are often different motives, such as professional recognition, publication, knowledge sharing, or the desire to undertake consulting to share knowledge and raise research funds (Audretsch, Leyden, and Link 2013; Razak and Murray 2017). The study in this paper concurred; it demonstrated that ‘one size fits all’ commercialization training programs for researchers tend to assume that academics from different disciplines have similar assumptions and knowledge bases. This has created much angst amongst those who from the social sciences who have not considered commercial outcomes and those whose research ethos is grounded in contributing to the public good.

Further issues were also outlined in this commentary. One is a need to allow researchers ‘time out’ when undertaking the process of commercialization as the legal ramifications of the process leave little room for error. Related to this, there is a need for all researchers, regardless of their disciplinary home, to be provided neutral legal support by their university when negotiating licence agreements. The study in this paper also highlighted a need for peer support and mentorship for those considering this process, and a need for structural changes to funding, such that the process is rewarded similarly to competitive research grants. Given that these recommendations were formed from one project alone, there is also an urgent need to conduct empirical research that the processes, experiences of researchers and outcomes of commercialization in further detail.

Razak and Murray (2017) argue that universities can act as knowledge creators who help solve societal problems. This process may or may not involve commercialization. For tourism researchers, the opportunities that may exist in the commercialization sphere will continue to be impeded if researchers are not empowered, supported, and given the freedom to engage, or not engage in this agenda. What remains paramount is that tourism researchers have the flexibility to undertake impactful research that is theoretical or applied in nature.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).