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Abstract
The juxtapositioning of government providing a public good through research and development investment on one hand and engaging in commercialisation of the research outcome on the other is a paradox. Using agricultural research as an example, we examine the nature of the paradox to determine if commercialisation potentially leads to a conflict in the role of public research institutions set up to fulfil public good responsibilities. We identify the reasons for the shift in policy towards commercialisation and greater exploitation of public sector intellectual property and how this has contributed to the emergence of the apparent inconsistency. We argue that the belief in working for public good is inherent and embedded in an organisation's history and its wider operating environment. We propose that the creation of public sector intellectual property and its commercialisation are influenced by the political, social and economic environment in which the public institutions operate.
Introduction
Public policy changes in recent years have led to a re-examination of the effectiveness of public research institutions' contributions to national wealth and welfare. Historically, the rationale of market failure, provided the justification for knowledge generated from these institutions being placed in public domain, in line with a public good rationale. In recent years there has been a policy shift towards greater commercialisation of public sector research. We attribute this shift to the following reasons: (1) the changing view in respect of the nature and attributes of information as a consequence of the recent recognition of knowledge as a valuable commodity leading to greater appreciation of intellectual property originating from the public sector; (2) the increasing role of the private sector in working with public sector institutions in R&D and getting into research areas previously unattractive due in part to the widening scope of intellectual property protection and (3) the belief that commercialisation is both an important and effective way to extend and transfer the knowledge products of public sector research to the marketplace. We argue that commercialising public sector intellectual property may seem to create a dialectical contradiction to the historical public good goal of government addressing market failure but equally we argue that it will be naive to assume that the intellectual property will be used for public good if...