The ARC’s Linkage Grants programme is designed to connect researchers to industry – and it works for many businesses, just not regularly.

Paul Dalby and Noni Creasey from In Fusion Consulting dig into the detail to discover that while private companies make up 50 per cent of Linkage partners, some 70 per cent of them only participate in the programme once.

Part of the problem is time, universities like three-year Linkage grants, they give young researchers job security and the space to work on ideas, public sector organisations are not bothered and big corporations can afford to wait for quality outcomes. But for people who worry about making payrolls every month, three years is an eternity. “Is the Linkage Programme agile enough to be attractive to fast-moving, innovative start-up companies?”, the authors ask.