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Dr. Kevin Cullen takes on academic impact

Apr 24, 2018 Innovation

Dr. Kevin Cullen, an experienced leader in global innovation, is the new vice president of KAUST Innovation and Economic Development. File photo.

​Dr. Kevin Cullen has been appointed as vice president of KAUST Innovation and Economic Development. Cullen is a leader in global innovation with expertise in both economic development and industrial engagement. In his new role, he will lead the University's intellectual property portfolio, help create and support new businesses, joint ventures and collaborations with industry partners and continue to foster a strong culture of entrepreneurship at KAUST.

Cullen has over 20 years of experience in academic innovation and business development. Throughout his career, he has helped elevate university-based innovation enterprises that have led to the launch of more than 250 startup companies as well as numerous products and services.

Prior to joining KAUST, Cullen spent six years as CEO of Innovations at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. He helped transform UNSW from a traditional commercialization unit into an innovation hub by supporting a broad range of university priorities, including economic development and social impact.

Cullen also helped change the debate around university/industry engagement in Australia. He was commissioned by the Australian government to produce a report on the most effective ways to build connections between academia and industry. Most recently, he was appointed to the NSW Innovation and Productivity Committee, where he introduced new approaches to innovation and economic development at the state level.

Partnering universities with industry

Dr. Kevin Cullen speaks during the 9th annual KAUST Industry Advisory Board (KIAB) meeting on the University's campus, which took place from February 21 to 22 this year. Photo by Andrea Bachofen-Echt.

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The first university and industry partnership program Cullen ran was at Heriot-Watt University in the U.K. The companies Cullen worked with began thinking more innovatively by employing more university students, collaborating on more research projects and developing new products. However, although the program was a classic economic development program, the university didn't make any money from it, as it was provided with grants from the Scottish government.

Cullen's next role at the University of Glasgow was different. Asked to deliver a commercialization strategy, his focus was fixed on delivering revenue from the university's intellectual property (IP) portfolio.

At the time, there were some blockbuster IP success stories dominating university commercialization news, like the University of Florida and Gatorade; Florida State University and the chemotherapy drug Taxol; and, later on, the $700 million in royalties from Northwestern University's drug Lyrica. There was less focus on the partnerships and relationships that Cullen had seen work so well.

Generating revenue from university IP


Dr. Kevin Cullen (second from left) takes part in an on campus KAUST event with KAUST Innovation and Economic Development on April 14. File photo.

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Cullen then became head of the University of Glasgow's Research & Enterprise department and a board member of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). He began asking his colleagues from technology transfer offices around the world how much money they were making from IP, discovering that the answer was "not very much."

Former AUTM Presidents Ashley Stevens and John Fraser showed that, on average, university technology transfer programs will commercialize only 25 percent of their invention disclosures. Of these licenses, only 5 percent will ever generate revenue and only 0.5 percent will ever generate over $1 million.

Cullen then wondered: If university revenue isn't the key outcome of academic engagement with industry, then what is?

A new framework for academic impact


Dr. Kevin Cullen speaks to the audience during the 9th annual KAUST Industry Advisory Board (KIAB) meeting on the University's campus from February 21 to 22 this year. Photo by Andrea Bachofen-Echt.

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For Cullen, it was clear that universities played an important role in delivering benefits to industry and society—it wasn't about making money from IP but about maximizing the socio-economic impact universities were having. Cullen asked his University of Glasgow team to stop focusing on IP and instead examine the ways their researchers engage with companies.

The ability to measure impact became an important driver for Cullen. Over the next decade, he designed the metrics used to assess university funding in Scotland through Knowledge Transfer Grants; the U.K. with the Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF); internationally with AUTM and Praxisunico; and later in Australia at UNSW Innovations.

In the U.K., Cullen supported the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in developing the Impact Agenda, leading to the implementation of an impact assessment as part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). As part of the new system, 20 percent of university block grant funding is based upon the demonstrated impact of the research.

The Knowledge Exchange Model (pictured above) created by Dr. Kevin Cullen, the new vice president of KAUST Innovation and Economic Development, describes the flow of knowledge from research to impact and economic development. Image courtesy of KAUST Innovation/Dr. Kevin Cullen.

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In 2011, Cullen became the CEO of Innovations at UNSW Australia, where he introduced a new approach to innovation and industry engagement, shifting the focus from IP and revenue to relationships and impact. His work at UNSW demonstrated that the profile for university and industry engagement was similar to that in the U.K.—IP revenue made up the smallest percentage of university revenue and research partnerships were the largest.

While at UNSW Innovations, the Australian Department of Industry commissioned Cullen's team to produce a report recommending appropriate impact metrics. Some of the metrics proposed were based on Cullen's Knowledge Exchange Model, which describes the flow of knowledge from research to impact and economic development. Universities are generally able to track and measure the Knowledge Exchange channels, including consultancy, training, facilities, research, IP and company creation, making these a reasonable process for flow of knowledge.

Academic impact at KAUST


Dr. Kevin Cullen, the new vice president of KAUST Innovation and Economic Development, encourages KAUST researchers to 'think about working with people who are interested in your research and who can use it to make a difference and—in some cases—even to change the world.' File photo.

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Cullen feels that the University's excellence in research—such as KAUST ranking number one for citations per faculty member—is an important starting point for his work, but it is only part of the picture. Increasing KAUST researcher engagement with industry, government and other users of academic knowledge is at the top of his list.

"KAUST must enhance its reputation by extending excellence in research to excellence in innovation and impact," Cullen said. "We need to make it easier for researchers to get their research put to use by removing the legal, financial and administrative obstacles that typically come with commercialization."

Cullen is a firm believer that there is more desire in the academic community to create impact than most people think.

"I've never met a researcher who didn't want his or her work to make a difference," he noted. "My advice for researchers who want to create impact is: Stop thinking about commercializing your research. Instead, think about working with people who are interested in your research and who can use it to make a difference and—in some cases—even to change the world."


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