Flinders University has joined forces with a US-based company to promote its innovative software for commercialising research to universities and research institutions on international markets.

The collaboration between Flinders University and Innovista Systems was announced last week at the formal launch in Adelaide of Flinders Partners, the research commercialisation arm of the University.

Flinders Partners Managing Director, Anthony Francis, said the relationship with Innovista is one of the first international collaborations for the newly formed company Flinders Partners which was established to bring good ideas and advanced research together with the marketplace to develop viable products.

“The ASK software provides a platform for analysing research projects, assessing market readiness and advising on the steps still required before the product can be offered for sale,” Mr Francis said.

“ASK will be a very useful tool for the university sector which has a history of generating great ideas and research initiatives, but has been less successful in successfully delivering viable products to market,” he said.

“The collaboration with Innovista Systems will incorporate our commercialisation software with the intellectual property management system of the US company, and both ASK and the combined software package will then be marketed globally.”

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Chris Marlin, said the joint venture with Innovista was an excellent example of the way in which the merging of the former Flinders Technologies and Flinders Consulting into Flinders Partners would underpin a new era of research and development collaboration between researchers, the investment community and the business sector.