Engineers are entrepreneurs by nature. A new postgraduate degree will help turn those instincts into the basis of a more vibrant private enterprise environment in Australia.
You might hear it referred to as the “valley of death”.
On one side stands an engineer with a brilliant idea — perhaps even a prototype and a small team working to develop it.
On the other stands market success: the forces that turn a great concept into a must-have product.
The gap between the two is where ambition falters and technological innovation sputters out. It’s an expanse that thwarts the hopes of many Australian engineers and prevents the country from the innovative heights our raw talent has the capacity to reach.
Professor Megan Lord, Associate Dean Research at University of New South Wales (UNSW) Engineering and the founding Academic Director of the Australian Graduate School of Engineering (AGSE) Industry PhD Program, knows well how this divide works. She also knows that the valley doesn’t need to be so vast — or deadly.
“The research and development [R&D] innovation ecosystem in Australia takes in the private enterprise, government and university sectors,” she said.
“And what we see is that the universities are very good at research — particularly academic outputs — and are increasingly becoming skilled in innovation and translation of those innovations.
“In private enterprise we see some R&D activities, but it’s largely adoption of technologies rather than in-house creation of technologies.”
A stronger research base
The disparity between these pillars, however, offers opportunity. Bringing the private enterprise, government and university sectors closer together offers immense opportunity for Australia.
“We want to transition to a technologically based economy to drive our future national prosperity,” Lord said.
“We need to be able to create more local industry, and technology is the best way to do that. But our organisations at the moment are not investing in R&D to the same extent that our international partners are.”
Part of strengthening the nation’s research base, then, is recognising the differences between academia and industry and finding ways to connect these sometimes disparate institutions.
“We know that the pace of university research is quite different to industry, and so we need to get better at crossing the boundaries of communication and timelines to make these partnerships more effective,” Lord said.
“We see this as the key to unlocking new technologies to drive new business opportunities, whether that’s for existing organisations or, indeed, creating new organisations.”
And while academia and business might think about innovation on a different time scale, with universities prepared to engage in research across decades and businesses hoping to see a return on their investment within a few years, the skills and talent involved are often similar.
“The reality is that more than half of our PhDs move into industry after their degree, and those that stay in post-doc research positions may do so for a few years and then many of them will move on to corporate enterprise,” Lord said.
An entrepreneurial education
To guide engineers along that path from research to entrepreneurship, Lord has developed a new research degree to be offered through the AGSE.
Launching in January 2026, the Master of Philosophy in Engineering Entrepreneurship is designed to develop business and entrepreneurial skills for professionals while they conduct rigorous research to test a technology-based business idea.
“Across the globe, we see entrepreneurship taught in business schools, which is a great way to develop business skills and understand the startup ecosystem,” Lord said.
“But what that approach lacks is training in the technology space so that an entrepreneur’s engineering innovations can reach the Australian marketplace. Engineering innovation takes time and resources, and that’s where a research degree comes in.”
The degree will offer researchers the opportunity to upskill beyond business skills development and give consideration to the application of their innovation. While studying the 18-month full-time course, students will have access to scholarships supporting them during that research training, as well as packages to help fund research costs.
Students will develop the scientific rigour to test their ideas while also building entrepreneurial skills such as identifying market fit and understanding finance, promotion, organisational operation and the development of business models that support technology translation.
According to Lord, a broad range of people can benefit from training in entrepreneurship.
“Research degrees are for anybody after they’ve done their undergraduate degree at any stage in their career,” she said.
“It might be straight out of university that people have an idea and want to invest time in developing skills and testing their idea. Or it might be at some point in the future of their career where they see the skills that these entrepreneurship programs offer will help them in their next career stage and help them get to where they want to be.”
To learn more about developing a business idea and the skills to deliver it, visit the UNSW Industry PhD webpage, or contact [email protected].
