What factors inhibit publicly funded principal investigators’ commercialization activities?

This paper examines what factors publicly funded principal investigators (PIs) perceive as inhibiting their involvement in commercialization activities. PIs are important knowledge brokers in public science but while the emerging literature on PIs has primarily focused on identifying their multitude of roles and responsibilities, much less is known about their experiences in commercialization specifically. It remains unknown what challenges inhibit PIs from pursuing commercialization when shaping their competitive research proposals. To begin to address this topic, this study draws on semi-structured interviews with 24 funded health science PIs in New Zealand. The study found that a lack of confidence in the expectations and consistency of funding body review processes, as well as a lack of appropriate support and resources within the university, can deter PIs from incorporating commercialization activities in their research agendas. The implications of these findings for the literature and practice are also discussed.