adminThis follows the ministry’s realisation that most academic research outputs were gathering dust in various learning institutions without being utilised in the industrial and commercial sector.
“A lot of research that has been done by our students and research institutions has been used for academic purposes only without any commercialisation taking place,” said natural science cluster chairperson Mr Christopher Kateera.
“We want to develop an instrument that will determine innovative products which can be developed for the market to help reduce poverty and create jobs.”
This emerged at a consultative meeting for the Zimbabwe National Commission for Unesco and programme specialists from the Unesco Harare cluster office which was held last week.
Mr Kateera said the Ministry of Science and Technology Development would protect the intellectual property rights of the inventors and support product development at a commercial level. The study would be funded by Unesco and selected research projects would be commercialised through linkages with the corporate sector.
Zimbabwe National Commission for Unesco acting secretary general Dr Temba Ndlovu said research entities like the Research Council of Zimbabwe and universities lacked co-ordination and resources.
“Research entities need more co-ordination and resources to support the commercialisation of the research outcomes. We need to identify research projects that can be applied in commerce and industry. We need to engage entities that are responsible for driving research so that the impetus is maintained,” ,” Dr Ndlovu said.
Online Reporter