However, that is the core mission of the newly-appointed director of business development for the government and University-backed consortium, National ICT Australia.
Ric Clark, managing director of Ericsson's AsiaPacificLab in Australia, will take on the task immediately after the laboratory finally closes down at the end of this month.
Clark declined to comment in detail about where his efforts would be most needed, citing the fact he had not had a chance to examine existing research and development programs or get his head across the detail of existing relationships between research organisations and the commercial sector.
However, he said his experience -- which includes membership of a range of advisory groups, including the Framework for ICT Future Steering Group and the Victorian government's ICT Advisory Group -- had made him aware that there were "opportunities for improvement on both sides of the fence".
While the linkages were weak -- Australia's research and development capabilities were, in themselves, "among the world's best".
Announcing Clark's recruitment, NICTA's recently-appointed chief executive officer and president, Dr Mel Slater said the new appointee would manage NICTA's commercialisation and intellectual property activities, as well as leading the centre's industry development portfolio.
Clark admitted to some sadness at leaving Ericsson -- but acknowledged that his new role gave him the opportunity to "leverage my experience...more directly for the local industry".
He said he expected the vast majority of the 400-odd staff employed by the Ericsson AsiaPacificLab to find work within Australia.
Ericsson announced the closure of the AsiaPacificLab in October last year, just seven weeks after denying the facility was under threat, citing the need to slash research and development costs on a global basis.
Clark said at the time: "It is a sad day for research and development in Australia, with no upside except that the local industry will have access now to some of the finest communications and software engineers in the world as AsiaPacificLab completes its assignments".
Clark told ZDNet Australia that to date, AsiaPacificLab project managers and open systems software engineers had picked up new employment relatively easily, with the engineers heavily in demand in the financial services sector. The picture was less clear for others, a number of whom had not been in the job market for long. Around 30 staff were working out short-term contracts at other Ericsson facilities overseas as research tasks were transferred.
Clark said over the last few months, a celebration or wake had been held at the end of each month for the staff who had departed in the few weeks before. Departures had averaged around 30-40 per month.
NICTA -- to be based initially at Australian Technology Park at Redfern in central Sydney -- is establishing research and research training nodes at the University of NSW and the Australian National University.
The consortium -- whose shareholders include the NSW and ACT governments as well as the two Universities -- has been selected as preferred candidate to establish the ICT Centre of Excellence, which has attracted more than AU$200 million in funding from a range of bodies.
