What’s in a name: SHAPE commercialisation needs case studies more than words

TL: DR We don’t need to worry about the perfect term for SHAPE commercialisation, the true challenge is raising awareness and getting early examples that can become ambassadors.

When talking about SHAPE commercialisation at universities and especially at conferences of TTOs on SHAPE commercialisation, one of the most frequent topics is about getting the right terminology. “Our academics don’t like it” or ”Commercialisation is a dirty word, we need a different term”. TTOs and innovation staff worry that the term will repel researchers - the opposite of what a TTO or innovation officer is trying to do. 

They aren’t wrong. Commercialisation is a poor word, it sounds entirely contradictory to the ethos and motivation of most researchers - that it is being done for the public good. It sounds like it might pervert research by bending it towards profit motives, it sounds like capitalism. 

Attempts to tackle this are now new and there are alternative words that have their pros and cons. ‘Valorisation’ as a term is used in continental Europe but only really in academia. The simple  ‘spin-outs’ is ok but doesn't capture all the forms of commercialisation - plus it sounds like some form of dining table accessory. At ARC, we use ‘impact at scale’ coined by Julian Jantke - conceptually it works - its the idea that the impact is made sustainable by developing a business model (i.e. sustainable source of funding) to the research rather than a research grant - enabling the impact to grow and scale. 

Perhaps one, perfectly fitting word will win the marketplace of ideas but I suspect not. STEM has been doing commercialisation far longer than SHAPE, it has not alighted upon a better word and STEM spinouts have continued to grow year on year. Some would argue STEM researchers are more amenable to commercialisation but I think that's contestable and more likely that they’ve had longer to get used to it. The lesson, which I think is implicit in the STEM example, is that not only does the perfect term probably not exist, it’s a distraction from the more important goal of raising awareness of commercialisation as an option and giving researchers a way to understand it that works for them.

Firstly, I think awareness is the harder challenge. Trying to finesse a perfect word - or worse invent a new one that will probably only be used for a year or two before being discarded/replaced etc undermines outreach in general. Reaching researchers is always hard - they are always overworked and their inboxes are permanently flooded - you need a clear and consistent communications approach to cut through.  Terms like ‘commercialisation’ might be problematic but people do know what it means.

Secondly, I worry that it becomes a blocker for action - people might spend valuable months trying to come up with a word, defining it in an amenable way. This comes in lieu of the bigger picture which is finding those researchers who could benefit and helping them to the very hard job of building a venture or licensing.

Thirdly - we can always explain the term. Any SHAPE student had to define their terms at the start of an essay - the reason being there is rarely, if ever - total agreement on any conceptual term - commercialisation is no different. The most important sentence for Impact at Scale is the one that follows it - which if I’m explaining it - is typically something like ‘Impact at scale is about building ventures - for-profit, social, charities - and finding a sustainable business model so the impact can continue indefinitely. The point being - the researcher will have a choice of venture models not all of which are synonymous with profit and capitalism.

Fourthly, and perhaps contentiously - I’m not convinced those researchers who find the term most disagreeable are the target audience. In my experience, researchers that end up on this journey do so because they believe very strongly commercialisation is the only or best route for impact from their research. I was reminded of this recently when one researcher entrepreneur said “I didn’t want to build a venture but no one was solving the problem so I eventually had to do it myself”. The most important thing is finding those researchers who could benefit from commercialisation, rather than worrying about researchers who are worrying about words.

My biggest argument against worrying too much is that I think it misunderstands how culture change and attitudes happen. Words help, but it's far more powerful to see peers - by subject, by institution talk about their venture. Comms and outreach event - the ‘transmission’ method are needed to get things going but for me the step change in interest and engagement comes when researchers know or know of one or more fellow researchers who pursued commercialisation in a way they find relatable. 10 minutes of hearing an education researcher-entrepreneur talking to education researchers is more powerful than the any number of talks I could give to the same group.

We are all social creatures and what is acceptable or not is usually defined by what others in our group are doing. But hearing from peers also shows that it's possible in a relatable way. Hearing a researcher - discuss their commercialisation journey - with all too relatable trials and tribulations of what they worried about, getting grants, speaking about theory work in a different way is infinitely more powerful and by extension persuasive because it speaks to the audiences own experiences and identities.

Which brings me to my final point, within reason, any word is ok - if researchers understand by it something that is acceptable and the easiest way to do that is if they know someone or know of someone - who they can identify with who has done it. If Jess in Social policy has a social venture you admire - the word your university uses in comms probably won’t matter too much.

I don’t wish to stop anyone searching for a better term, after all, ARC did exactly that with ‘impact-at-scale’ but I’m under no illusion that it’s how we explain what the term means and more importantly how we show what the term means with case studies or speakers that is the key to raising awareness and growing a community of SHAPE researchers open to commercialisation. The good news is that the community is growing and a researcher-entrepreneur from any given SHAPE discipline is at most a Zoom call away.