Emma Lancaster:

The Impact at UTS podcast series is made by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney. An audio production house funded by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research.

Martin Bliemel:

I want you to imagine yourself lying on your back in the ocean. The sun’s gently hitting your face, the water’s cold, and it’s only you out there. You’re a hundred meters from the shore. You’re enjoying complete momentary bliss, when a certain fear kicks in. According to the leading data, only 12 people have died from a shark attack in Australia in the last five and a half years. Yet despite this fact, we’re utterly terrified of sharks. Now, you may be wondering what all of this has to do with engaged and impactful research. And the answer, as you’ll soon find out, is everything.

Michael Blumenstein:

There’s this inherent worry about this issue when people go into the water. So, being able to alleviate those concerns and actually save lives, contribute to that community in that way, is something that’s been really astronomical.

Martin Bliemel:

I’m Associate Professor Martin Bliemel, the Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation at UTS. In this episode of Impact at UTS we will tackle what it means to collaborate with external research partners, how to manage external partnerships that are effective and sustainable, and we’ll get some tips on commercialization from researchers working with the industry, and we’ll also get a fly on the wall account of an international research collaboration with government.

Martin Bliemel:

UTS has committed to knowledge exchange and encouraging research collaborations between the university, industry, and broader society. But what makes research collaboration effective? And what are the benefits and barriers to collaboration? First up, we’ll be hearing from a professor who’s working so successfully with industry that his research collaboration is literally saving lives.

Michael Blumenstein:

When you’re looking at sharks and a shark that’s five minutes from a surfer, every second counts. It’s not money, it’s life.

Michael Blumenstein:

My name is Michael Blumenstein. I’m the Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney.

Martin Bliemel:

And you’re going to hear from the industry partner that came knocking on UTS’s door with a killer problem.

Paul Scully-Power:

From the industry point of view, I had a problem. I needed some AI help. I went to number one AI university, and they were very accommodating. If they hadn’t been accommodating, I would have gone to the next one. So, that’s the way industry works.

Martin Bliemel:

For the last four years, professor Michael Blumenstein and Paul Scully-Power have been developing something called the Shark Spotter. It’s a device that’s powerful enough to identify what a shark looks like out at sea and transmit that information to a lifesaver on the beach within one second.

Michael Blumenstein:

Shark Spotter is a technology that was developed in conjunction with the Ripper Group to create what essentially was called the Little Ripper Lifesaver drone device. And the Shark Spotter component was a video-based tool, which could actually look at, from a drone, at the ocean and identify objects automatically using artificial intelligence. So, streaming from a drone with less delay than one second has never been done before. When we look at, say life-saving, we’ve got usually people on the ground or helicopters in the air, surveying the area looking for hazards, which include nasties, like sharks and other marine animals. So, this was a new approach by actually taking an automated tool attached via video camera on a drone to do detection of these nasties, particularly sharks, from the air.

Martin Bliemel:

Along the way, Professor Michael Blumenstein and Paul Scully-Power from the Ripper Group have become good friends, and I wanted to share their story with you as a roadmap for effective collaboration.

Michael Blumenstein:

This work that we’ve done here has demonstrated significant impact already and the story hasn’t even finished yet. And to us, that’s an amazing achievement. Not only are we benefiting real people, the real economy, real industry, but we’re also having an impact on a longer term, which is really great for Australia.

Martin Bliemel:

The device that Michael and Paul have come up with is more than 90% accurate at detecting sharks, compared to 20% accuracy when a lifesaver is doing the job. It’s a collaboration between UTS and the Ripper Group, a private company co-founded by Paul Scully-Power, who just so happens to be Australia’s first astronaut, along with Kevin Weldon, who started the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service. Shark Spotter is basically a camera attached to a drone that flies over a body of water and uses an algorithm to identify sharks. This is p\Professor Michael Blumenstein’s explanation of how it functions. He’s speaking with journalist and Impact Studios producer, Cassandra Steeth.

Michael Blumenstein:

The camera is just providing the video footage, and it’s streaming in and streaming in live. But the algorithm that’s the actual Shark Spotter tool is really the smarts behind the analysis of the video to pick out objects in the video scene and to automatically detect specific objects of interest, so in this case sharks.

Cassandra Steeth:

How does the lifesaver then receive that information and what do they do with it?

Michael Blumenstein:

So the actual lifesavers and lifeguards are the operators. So they can actually see on their operation device the video that’s streaming. But what it highlights to them is what’s in the surf, what’s in the ocean. And that comes up as these little boxes on the screen that say there could be a shark here or there definitely is a shark here, or there’s something else, a whale or a person, surfboard, whatever it may be. The decision making is still a human in the loop, which means it’s still very much in control of a human making the decision for the next step.

Michael Blumenstein:

And the next step could be alerting another authority, maybe some boat or coastguard or whatever it is that’s out there in the surf, or actually deploying people on the ground there from the beach to actually go rescue somebody that’s about to be in a hazardous situation. So there are a number of ways they can react. And the information they get is really crucial to them being able to make that decision. They’re actually being used by lifeguards and lifesavers at the moment to support their job and to actually keep our beaches safe.

Michael Blumenstein:

And the fact that we’ve been able to turn something that was actually developed in a laboratory in a research facility, and then be able to take that out to deployment is a really important thing. Not only for, I’m hoping, for the industry partner but also for the end users, which are the lifeguards, because that means that there’s something really tangible that’s come out of the research to help save lives. There’s been about half a dozen documented cases we could actually ascribe directly to the drones, being able to effectively keep people out of danger or save them through the actual technology.

Martin Bliemel:

Cass and Michael were joined in-studio by Shark Spotter industry partner, Paul Scully-Power, the co-founder of the Ripper Group.

Paul Scully-Power:

I’m Paul Scully-Power. What do I do? That’s a really hard question, actually. I’m the co-founder of the Ripper Group, which is the Little Ripper Lifesaver. I consult to the Defence Department. And I’m the New South Wales Premier’s Space Ambassador.

Cassandra Steeth:

Let’s talk about how you guys met, because I imagine this is integral in how the relationship started.

Paul Scully-Power:

I’ll answer that question.

Michael Blumenstein:

And I’ll follow up.

Paul Scully-Power:

It was pretty obvious to me that I already knew that spotting from helicopter or a light plane is sort of 20, 23% at best. And I figured if you’re looking at video from a drone, it’s probably a little bit more, but not as much. So I then figured out which university in Australia was by far more renowned for AI than anyone else, and it turned out to be UTS. They were very accommodating. If they hadn’t been accommodating, I would have gone to the next one. So, that’s the way industry works.

Michael Blumenstein:

It’s very exciting. I think I got tapped on the shoulder by my Dean saying, what do you think of this? And I had my first meeting with Paul and the rest is history.

Cassandra Steeth:

Okay. Let’s talk about how you guys commercialised Shark Spotter.

Paul Scully-Power:

Well right now we’re in the infancy. But if you look forward, we’ve had requests from probably 10 nations around the world. We just got one yesterday from South Korea, they have highly populated beaches. So they want us to go there and license the technology. So we’re really not talking about selling the technology, we’re talking about licensing the technology, and hopefully around the world. And when I say around the world, the beaches in California have approached us, Hawaii have approached us, some of the beaches in England have approached us.

Cassandra Steeth:

Who gets rich here? Who owns the IP of Shark Spotter?

Paul Scully-Power:

That’s a very good question. That’s one great thing about UTS. They don’t clamor to own the IP, whereas a lot of other universities do. So what we’re doing is saying if Ripper makes money out of these inventions, this technology, we will, of course share it back to UTS.

Cassandra Steeth:

But it wasn’t an obligation?

Paul Scully-Power:

Was not an obligation.

Michael Blumenstein:

So I can elaborate on that sweet deal of a lifetime, is that that’s UTS default policy on IP. Naturally, that’s not for every single project, but that’s the default. And UTS signed up to the Australian Technology Network, the ATN’s IP policy, which is about ensuring that companies, SMEs have the ability to take the research that’s developed in the university for their benefit, but more importantly for the economic benefit and societal benefit.

Martin Bliemel:

SMEs, for those who don’t know, are small to medium enterprises.

Michael Blumenstein:

There’s a lot of SMEs, well, huge percentage of SMEs in this country, and what we need is the ability to grow their capacity. And the best way to do that is to take the innovation sitting inside universities, which unfortunately is untapped in Australia. You talk to other countries around the world, they’ve been doing this for a long time. But the ability to take university research, where the most innovation is occurring, and being able to translate into some sort of outcome for industry, is really one of the ways, not the only way, but one of the ways to grow our economic edge in this country away from traditional sectors.

Martin Bliemel:

UTS’s position on intellectual property differs from some other universities. The overarching philosophy is that the university wants to give its research, technologies, and innovations the best possible chance to make an impact on society and the economy. So our IP policies are designed to ensure UTS is easy to deal with and that our research has the best chance of creating impact and societal benefit. And Professor Michael Blumenstein says this approach ultimately benefits all parties, researchers, and our collaborating partners.

Michael Blumenstein:

I want to emphasise, we do everything in partnership. When it comes to media releases, when we’ve got millions of media hits all over the world, you name it, National Geographic, to BBC, to the Times of India, to some of the biggest… New York Times, you name it, we’ve been on every major media outlet. And we do this in partnership. So we do the work together, we get the awards together, and we get the promotion and the exciting exposure together. And that I think is a key to this relationship is the very close partnership that a university and the industry partner has.

Paul Scully-Power:

But also I want to add that what’s in it for the university is that over those four years we’ve won literally numerous national awards for what we’re doing. So yes, Ripper gets kudos for that, but UTS also gets great kudos for that.

Cassandra Steeth:

If I’ve got this straight, the Little Ripper Group owns the IP, but if it makes money, there will be a split. And UTS will use that money to fund more projects, more research.

Paul Scully-Power:

Yeah, well, right from day one, in the default position, UTS has said, “You own the IP.” To which I responded, “Yes, it’s going to be several years before we commercialise it. But when we do, I will ensure that the money that we get from the commercialisation would be shared back with UTS.”

Cassandra Steeth:

So have you figured out a percentage?

Michael Blumenstein:

I think there’s a lot to cover still. I mean, if we’re looking at what phase we’re in, we’re still under, partially in some elements, under research development phase still. And that’s ongoing, as we mentioned earlier. But yeah, this conversation around splits and other things, I mean, we’re talking about a partnership here, so it’s most likely going to continue on as a partnership in those terms as well.

Paul Scully-Power:

If you look at UTS and their IP policy relative to a lot of other Australian universities who insist on negotiating the IP upfront, the interesting figures are that the UTS, because of that, have far more programs, collaborative programs with industry than any other university.

Cassandra Steeth:

Because it’s more attractive for industry.

Paul Scully-Power:

Absolutely.

Michael Blumenstein:

And easier.

Paul Scully-Power:

That’s where the bureaucracy comes in. You can literally spend over a year negotiating with universities on IP before you even get an agreement.

Michael Blumenstein:

We’re approaching like a thousand partnerships in our faculty. And of course that’s all sorts of partnerships, including internships and PhDs, stipends, research projects, the breadth is huge. But what I keep hearing over and over is, “I went down to another university and I talked to them about X and I walked away because it took too long, the administration was too cumbersome.” Industry works in days, minutes, seconds. It doesn’t deal in weeks and months and years. We have to adapt as a university sector to that. And the good news is UTS is far ahead of the other universities in leading the way in efficient translation of research into commercial outcomes.

Cassandra Steeth:

Yeah. And that make sense. It’s a very attractive proposition for industry when you don’t have to negotiate these things. I guess I want to know whether that’s frustrating, Michael, in any way, because you’ve got 10 different countries who are interested in this technology. It could make millions, it could make billions, I don’t know, but it’s a huge opportunity for UTS. Is it frustrating that that is slightly out of your control, that pool of money that could be generated?

Michael Blumenstein:

If we just look at purely economically, whatever benefits the Ripper Group reaps, we will reap in some measure due to the discussion around sharing the wealth, so to speak, from successful deployments. So that’s a positive thing. The other thing that I suppose is very important is that whenever we do a project as a university, it’s important to note that the background IP is ours. So we still work with other industry partners and there are other opportunities. But for this particular work, we’ve obviously made an arrangement which is mutually beneficial. And as I said, apart from the potential dollars that can come back from successful sales of this through a licensing agreement with these 10 countries, we’re going to get those benefits. But in addition to that, we get the economic impact and other societal benefits. So in a sense, we get the best of both worlds.

Michael Blumenstein:

We will probably end up with the dollars at the end to continue research plus being able to have a real impact in society and industry. So really I see it as a win-win to be honest. And of course the team, not only mine, but there many teams under the AI space in the faculty, are still doing research across many different things that we still retain our knowledge and know-how to build other technologies, hopefully for the benefit of other future industries and partners. So, in a way, we’re actually in a great position and it’s quite exciting.

Paul Scully-Power:

So let me take it one step further. When you ask questions about commercialisation of research and everything else, you really should start from the point of view is, what is good for the nation? What is good for Australia? And to have a university working collaboratively with industry, almost no matter what the outcome, but as long as that collaboration is successful, it’s good for the nation. That’s what you got to think about.

Michael Blumenstein:

And if I could just add something, it’s not just good for the nation, it’s actually good for the university sector as a whole, if the university sector operates in a certain way. And the reason behind that is that, to be honest, funding from traditional sources is shrinking, or funding generally for universities in the current climate of COVID and other things is a challenge. But imagine if we can become agile enough to attract more dollars for research from industry, by just having these success stories. That’s actually the future of research for universities.

Michael Blumenstein:

I’m not saying there’s not going to be any fundamental research, which is where the very longterm, initial great ideas come from. It just means that we have to also shift into a mode of being prepared to work with industry, which has dollars or has access to dollars to do really cool things that are of benefit to them and the country.

Cassandra Steeth:

The thing that I’ve learned doing a lot of these interviews, which is focused on impact and how to encourage researchers to want to work with industry in a more collaborative way, is that traditionally it’s been understood as a bit of a dirty pathway, but now that consciousness is shifting. I’m interested to get both of your takes on that shift, what you think of it.

Michael Blumenstein:

At the end of the day, eyes are opening up to the fact that working with industry and delivering on outcomes which are of benefit to them and that the broader picture is actually a really good path, because the university, and it really comes from the top, the university has an agenda of working from the public good. It’s really fantastic pathway to get real experience. And taking the research out from the university and out into the world, that’s something that some researchers never do. And this opportunity now is there for that to happen.

Cassandra Steeth:

Michael, having commercialised a piece of university research, which is such an interesting proposition, it’s not something that you cognitively leap to all the time when you think about university research, what do you think are some of the myths the research community may have around commercialisation?

Michael Blumenstein:

Well, I think some of the myths are that they’re constrained, that they don’t have academic freedom, that they don’t have the ability to do things that they want to do with their research. But the reality is that the onus is a little bit on industry, to be honest. And the fact that, if I go back to the case of the Ripper Group, we’ve got Australia’s first astronaut as a co-founder, and you’ve got Westpac, innovative people with a board of innovators and a CEO that understands that. Now, when you’re working with a partner like that, the myths are busted, there are no constraints there, your academic freedom, go for it.

Michael Blumenstein:

But to be honest, this relationship has actually been really… It’s being able to do the research we love, we still have published some work. So the academic publications are there, the awards, the direction, we want to develop more AI and this is a conduit to take some of our ideas into a practical scenario. Some people just sit around with publicly available data sets and submit papers endlessly.

Paul Scully-Power:

And I’ll give you another example. We collectively just won the award for the most innovative drone company in Australia.

Michael Blumenstein:

And that could not have been done by a researcher worrying about what does commercialising their research mean? My view is that you’ve got to go out there and try. So I think that’s where research should be looking is to say, what industries they want to work with, where can they deliver the most impact, and what will interest them?

Cassandra Steeth:

But I also think who do you like and who do you get along with, because you’re both good friends and you can tell that you’ve got a really good working relationship. And so, how much of all of this stuff is down to the fact that you guys are good friends?

Paul Scully-Power:

Part from being a good question. I think that’s exactly right. You know, you tend to, well at least from my point of view, I tend to work with competent people who can share a joke.

Michael Blumenstein:

That is so important. A lot of people take for granted that some of the best relationships in a profession or a research group or industry research collaboration emerge because you get along and you actually enjoy each other’s company beyond the mundane, which is the actual work to do. So you understand each other, you understand if things don’t go quite right, that it can be fixed, and you can have a conversation about it.

Michael Blumenstein:

So I think that is really important. There’s a whole story behind that. And I’m sure some of the best successes benefit from that collegiality. We’re seeing more and more that we’re moving towards industry collaboration. That’s what government wants. That’s what the country wants. So the time is right for people to get out of their shells.

Martin Bliemel:

A huge part of why Shark Spotter was successful is because it’s an example of effective collaboration. And in this case, research commercialisation was the most efficient way of getting translation to occur. Now, there are a number of different models to commercialise IP. There’s the traditional model, where the university owns the IP and licenses it out, often for very specific uses or markets to any given partner. So that’s more common say for biotechnology. The vast majority of patents aren’t these blockbuster biotechnology inventions, so universities can afford to be more generous with the assignment of IP, particularly to SMEs.

Martin Bliemel:

The assignment of IP determines who owns the intellectual property, and increasingly a popular alternative to the traditional approach is easy access IP, whereby the university initially owns the IP, but then basically gives it to any industry partner who can take it and put it into the market. And if they don’t do anything with it for three years, that the university claims it back.

Martin Bliemel:

The Australian Technology Network, or ATN, policy that Michael mentioned earlier, that’s the policy that UTS uses as the default. And that takes IP ownership assignment one step further. Industry is the assignee. The inventors still get credited as inventors on the patents, but the assignee is the industry partner. Many academics actually fully support these policies because they love the kudos of seeing that their work is relevant and picked up by industry, and that they’re not doing the research necessarily as a get rich quick scheme.

Martin Bliemel:

But it’s important to remember the commercialisation path is best suited to only some types of research. It may not make sense if your work is focused on policy shifts or about societal change through engagement. At the end of the day, it’s about using the right tool for the right job. So we know collaboration can be beneficial, but it can also be risky. You don’t want to start collaborating just because it’s what everyone else seems to be doing.

Martin Bliemel:

It seems obvious, but when thinking about starting to collaborate, you need to explore why you and your research partner want to collaborate in the first place. It’s about finding the right fit. Not just any partner. Collaborations work best when partners share values and bring things to the table that add value. So it’s important to invest time in finding the right partner for you. Once you’ve found the one, you should discuss and agree upfront preferred ways of working together and ways of managing issues and tensions as they arise. This can mitigate major dramas later on.

Martin Bliemel:

And of course, partnerships are most effective when they’re not merely transactional, but based on trust, with shared interests and aspirations. Now, I want you to hear about a very different kind of collaboration that’s happening at an international scale. At UTS, we know that an international collaboration brings multiple benefits. And in this case, building a trusting relationship over time has been the key.

Michele Rumsey:

Effective collaboration really is about a long-term relationship, continued networking. I think for nurses and midwives, it’s really important that we look beyond our small circle of influence. Hi, my name’s Michele Rumsey. I’m the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Development at UTS.

Martin Bliemel:

In 2008, 14 countries across the Pacific approached UTS to develop a World Health Organization collaborating center. And it’s been Michele’s job to get the center off the ground. In her time as director, she’s overseen projects totaling $22 million.

Michele Rumsey:

We have a very clear mandate and terms of reference with WHO, which really looks about supporting and improving public health and population health in the Pacific. So our terms of reference is around human resources for health, leadership, regulation, education, and of course improving maternal and child health.

Martin Bliemel:

Michele Rumsey is in conversation with Impact Studios producer and journalist Cassandra Steeth.

Cassandra Steeth:

Now let’s drill into one of the projects that has come out of the center, the Maternal Child Health Initiative in Papua New Guinea. Can you tell me a little bit about the project?

Michele Rumsey:

So we work in a premise of looking at governance, which is around the ministerial support and leadership. We look at education, ensuring there’s a quality education process. Associations, which really support the health professionals in providing continuing professional development. And regulation, and regulation has to be embedded in everything in the country, especially in health, and that’s ensuring that the public are protected at all times.

Michele Rumsey:

We had colleagues working in PNG really since 2009, when we had professors in midwifery looking and supporting the Papua New Guinean government around their Maternal Child Health Task Force. And out of that task force, it was very clear that we needed to improve midwifery education across Papua New Guinea. We were employed by both WHO and DFAT to come in and support midwifery education across Papua New Guinea. What we did was over those five or six years, we had up to 15 midwifery educators working in Papua New Guinea and two obstetricians. But we worked very closely with our stakeholders across Papua New Guinea to improve the education facilities of those institutes.

Cassandra Steeth:

Women from PNG are 30 times more likely to die during childbirth than in Australia, and neonatal deaths remain quite high too. Why are both maternal and neonatal deaths so high in PNG?

Michele Rumsey:

Really the main reason is that the lack of qualified midwives and the number of health workforce across Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea has a very low rate of nurses, midwives, and doctors. And there was a World Bank health crisis report in 2011 which really gave us a mandate for improving the education in PNG and the number of educational institutes. Since that time we’ve increased the number of midwifery schools up to five. And we’ve increased the number of nursing schools from seven up to 19.

Cassandra Steeth:

Let’s talk about what the project looked like from a collaboration perspective. Who did you get on the ground in PNG to try and solve the problem of high maternal and neonatal deaths?

Michele Rumsey:

We’ve worked in the Pacific and Papua New Guinea for many, many years so we have a long standing relationship with our colleagues in Papua New Guinea. And trust and collaboration is really, really important. And so making sure that everything we do is in a culturally contextualized way, has actually made our partners want to work with us over and over again.

Michele Rumsey:

Stakeholders are really important, and we have found over the years that nurses and midwives are often not involved in the policy table. So that’s one thing we had to change immediately, which was build a stronger relationship between all the partners, whether it be UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO, the National Department of Health, make sure that we set up a really strong, unique stakeholder group at the beginning. And of course our partners who are funding the program, DFAT were involved in that all the way through.

Cassandra Steeth:

I suppose when you’re working through the project on the ground, did you take on any new partners? And if so, how did they come about?

Michele Rumsey:

I think when you’re working in country in a genuine way, you gain more and more partners. So we had 22 educators come to UTS and we’re building their education capacity. We met with hundreds and hundreds of stakeholders. One of the things that we truly believe in while doing our programs is a very strong monitoring and evaluation framework. And that monitoring and evaluation framework has to be developed with the country partners and carried out with the country partners. And what that means is that you can actually adjust and change the program as you go along.

Michele Rumsey:

For example, one thing that happened while speaking to both all our midwifery students, our midwifery educators, the provincial health leaders, the health minster, was that it was felt that the midwifery program itself was too short. It was a year long. So you can imagine you’re in the middle of a very big program carrying out research alongside and looking at the knowledge, attitude, and skills of the participants, looking at the impact of the education on long-term midwifery skills. And we realized that the midwifery program is too short.

Michele Rumsey:

So we had to go into very strong negotiations to change that program from a 12-month program to an 18-month program. And actually it’s quite significant that even though this work was being carried on as early as 2014, we’ve now just got that new midwifery program approved across Papua New Guinea with the National Department of Health, also regulatory facilities, and is being embedded into the educational facilities as we speak. So I think it’s about being agile and listening to our partners and being prepared to change something significant as you go along to ensure that the quality of what you’re doing is actually maintained throughout.

Michele Rumsey:

And the other important thing about monitoring and evaluation is that you actually do it in partnership with the stakeholders. So you actually have a genuine discussion with them. Some of my personal actual research work is around collectivist cultures and the difference between collectivist cultures and individualistic cultures. So I think we’ve got to be aware at all times that we all operate in a totally different way. And I think because of this huge amount of background work we’ve done within the collaborating center, we have always regarded ourselves a little bit as a bridge. So a bridge between what our country partners want to achieve, and sometimes the donor or funding agents’ requirements for a project. And I think actually taking that on in that way and working very closely has enabled us to have a true trusting relationship with our colleagues. We often ring them beforehand. We often get emails asking us quite complex questions in a very confidential way, so they can go and speak to other people. So I think that long-term trusting relationship has enabled us to be invited back many, many times by our colleagues in country.

Michele Rumsey:

That does, however, mean that projects can take longer than you wish. And you may have to fight quite hard with a funding body to say that things are maybe not going exactly the way they’d like it to, because we’ve had to switch the direction to ensure that it’s actually meeting the needs of the country.

Cassandra Steeth:

80% of women in Papua New Guinea give birth in rural areas. And there are obviously existing rural health networks on the ground in PNG. How did you essentially work within those networks, but also deliver a project?

Michele Rumsey:

I think that goes back a little bit to cultural contextualisation and understanding the environment you’re working with. Because everything that we did had to have the approval of the National Department of Health. Then you’d have to have the approval of the provincial offices. Then you’d have to understand where that educational institute work within the facilities. So for example, we got involved in quite a lot of the accreditation of health facilities to ensure that not only were we working with the educational institute, but we were also looking at the resources and facilities out there in the rural and remote areas.

Michele Rumsey:

Nurses, midwives, and community health workers make up 71% of the health workforce in Papua New Guinea. So it’s really important across the board that we continue to work with all those groups. And one of the outputs from this work has been the review of a curriculum for both nursing and community health workers that DFAT and WHO have agreed to carry out in the next few years, because we very clearly realized that the quality of those educational programs needed to be improved too, because in Papua New Guinea, you have to be a nurse before you can be a midwife.

Cassandra Steeth:

What is the legacy of the project? Have maternal and neonatal deaths reduced?

Michele Rumsey:

That’s impossible to answer that question. And that’s one of the things, and the reason that longevity relationships, monitoring and evaluation, and working over a long period is really, really important. In Papua New Guinea we don’t really record data in a way that we’d like to. We will not know whether maternal and child health deaths have really improved for the next five, six, ten years, maybe. Because increasing the number of midwives takes a long time. Then they have to be skilled up. And we’ve increased the number of midwives during the period we’ve worked there from about 219 to over 800. So there’s been a significant improvement in the numbers, but latest reports from WHO say we still need over 6,000 skilled workers in Papua New Guinea to improve the maternal and child health outcomes.

Cassandra Steeth:

Why is collaboration so important for research with impact?

Michele Rumsey:

One of the areas that we talk about a lot, and it’s something that we’ve been talking about in the international development space within UTS, is to actually show impact means you have to have longevity and a long relationship with your partners so that you can go back and see what impact has genuinely been made. In the international development space it’s not about numbers, it’s much more qualitative, it’s much more about what has been achieved, what policies have been achieved, what they have done, where they’ve been, what improvements have been made in a variety of areas.

Michele Rumsey:

And you can only get that information and that nuance of information if you’ve got this long-term relationship with people. And we can only show that huge impact if we have those long-term relationships. And yet that very work is often invisible and not costed into the projects or the research. And yet that’s a huge component of what we do. And we can only show that huge impact if we have those long-term relationships.

Michele Rumsey:

So I think with the Research Office and other partners within this international development program, across UTS, we’re looking at what it really means to have these long-term relationships and how we can ensure that they get costed in to the programs and that UTS as a whole, really, really regards this very strong component, that can often be invisible or people do in their own spare time, around the edges of program, whereas actually they really are the success and make the programs and the research successful.

Martin Bliemel:

There are many different approaches to research collaboration and no approach is necessarily better than another. The right tool for the right job comes to mind. University and community partners can decide to work together for very different reasons. The reasons can be practical. For example, it may be as simple as access to resources, or that the partnership is actually necessary to conduct the research. But it can also be more personal. Perhaps there’s an intrinsic motivation, friendship or shared interest. And it can come down to wider agendas, like the changing nature of research or rethinking the university community relationships.

Martin Bliemel:

The important thing is to understand these different motivations and their implications for how you approach your research. And remember, it’s worth talking to your research colleagues about their research collaborations. There are lots of lessons to be learned from the good work already happening here at UTS. And you never know where that conversation could lead.

Martin Bliemel:

Now, to find out more about the commercialisation models, we spoke about a bit earlier, just head to our show notes page for some more information.

Martin Bliemel:

Now, next time at Impact at UTS, we’re continuing on the Impact journey. We’re going to be talking about one of my favorite topics, breaking out of your research silo, valuing disciplinary diversity, and we’ll get to grips with my all time favorite buzzword, transdisciplinarity. I’m your host, Associate Professor Martin Bliemel. Thank you for listening to Impact at UTS. And don’t forget if you’re a UTS staff member and you’re interested to learn more about research, impact, and engagement, head over to the UTS RES Hub website, reshub.uts.edu.au, where you’ll find more information and helpful tools.

Emma Lancaster:

At Impact Studios, we work with the best scholars to embed audio in the research process, making one-of-a-kind podcasts that entertain, inspire, and create change. To get in touch, you can email impactstudios@uts.edu.au. The production team live on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, whose lands were never ceded.