A workable idea - Solar prof stars in uni's first innovation award

Daily Telegraph
Monday 27/4/2009 Page: 43

STUART Wenham's aim is to make the world a better place. A measure of his success so far was to be named last week the 2009 Inventor of the Year. The NewSouth Innovation awards, held for the first time, recognise innovative technologies from University of New South Wales researchers and students which, when commercialised, benefit the community and the environment.

Professor Wenham, a world leader in solar technology and leader of the university's ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence, has in the past 25 years been part of the invention process of eight different solar cell technologies that have been licensed and sold around the world. "The university likes the fact that technologies leave the laboratory and find a practical use," Professor Wenham said on the weekend. "It gets royalty fees and licensing fees and owns the intellectual property.

And I'm lucky enough in that it wants us to succeed and it is very generous at rewarding its inventors." Good ideas don't always translate into good business, but NewSouth Innovations was set up by the University of New South Wales to get as much good business out of its talent as possible. Chief executive officer Mark Bennett said that the centre was attuned to industry needs by creating products which can be commercialised and which solve real problems.

Commercialising an idea was not necessarily a simple task, Mr Bennett said. It involved three processes, the first being the protection of the intellectual property, the second examining the marketability of a new idea and, finally, the ownership of the intellectual property. And it's a process that can take two years or a lifetime.

"For example, when commercialising a new cancer drug, the research can take up to 10 years, then you have to get the industry engaged, then do the trials and then the marketing. This can take another 10 years. "And when it takes a long time it can become very expensive, say $230-300 million," Mr Bennett said.

"But with solar energy research they are developing technologies all the time and it may take only one to two years for the industry to adopt a new development. "There are extremes in commercialisation. You can have researchers working their entire careers and never get[ting] anywhere. "But it is important because it gives researchers direction," he said.