Episode 62 - Building the Tech Transfer Club with Lisa Birrell and Greg Harper

I had the opportunity to unpack the NorVic Foods ecosystem with Lisa Birrell (who was CEO) and Greg Harper (who drove the genesis of the initiative). With the ongoing conversations in Australia around innovation ecosystems (which we have had with John Howard), the need for better industry engagement (which we have had most recently with Jane Fitzpatrick) and the challenges of building regional ag innovation systems (discussed sometime back with Elena Kelavra), this presented as a coming together of these threads.

We set the scene as to the idea behind NorVic Foods (which is an abbreviation of Northern Victoria Foods) given its geographic centre was Shepparton in Victoria. At its heart, it was a different approach to building an ecosystem, putting established industry at the centre of the initiative to draw innovation in. This sits in contrast to ecosystems seeking to build new ventures driving to push innovation out.

Given the partnership between (State) government, University of Melbourne and regional industries, we spent some time discussing the governance model and associated metrics with securing the funding. A Project Control Board was established as part of ensuring alignment between projects, capabilities and available resources. This underpinned the early efforts of Lisa (who was appointed CEO) to start building connections between the university (from which students would be placed) and industry (where their internships would take place).

Greg and Lisa were able to share some examples of success, which were not only interesting in their own right but got me thinking about how to define and describe success. They shared that the work delivered by student had, in some cases, made its way into business case proposals to executive and board level in the private sector. It struck me this is a really great outcome, as the circumstances in which investment might be made are well outside the remit or even influence of those undertaking the technical program. While we do focus on economic outcomes, some recognition should be found for students and, perhaps, researchers whose work underpins investible propositions that don't get invested in for a range of reasons?

Particularly interesting were the insights gained from the four- year journey of NorVic Foods from each of Greg and Lisa. A key insight was around the 'Nascent Value Chain Club' that Greg described – bringing some economic theory into how an ecosystem can create value beyond the sum of its parts. With the program funding closing after four years, Lisa felt they had really only "just got started" with driving connections and impact through the region.