What the Research Innovation and Commercialisation Roundtable revealed about the distance between a good idea and a product that can reach people at scale.
Kenya’s universities and research institutions produce knowledge. Its TVET institutions build and test practical solutions. Its standards bodies, funders, government agencies and private companies hold many of the other capabilities required to turn ideas into products. Yet too much promising work remains in laboratories, institutional reports, patent registers or competition showcases.
That gap shaped the Research Innovation and Commercialisation Roundtable held on 8 September 2026 at Weston Hotel in Nairobi. Convened as part of the preparations for the Africa Technology Leadership Conference 2026, the breakfast session asked a direct question: why do so few research outputs travel the full distance from knowledge creation to sustained use in the market or public sector?
The discussion brought together public and private universities, TVET institutions, national research organisations, the State Department for Science, Research and Innovation, NACOSTI, the National Research Fund, KeNIA, the Kenya Bureau of Standards, National Museums of Kenya, CABI, INVIGENCE and private-sector representatives. Their contributions pointed to a system that has capable institutions but weak connections between them.
The central conclusion was practical. Kenya does not need to wait for research capability to appear. It needs a more dependable way to identify that capability, focus it on real problems and support the journey from an early idea to a tested, certified and commercially viable product.
Research and industry must meet earlier
Many university and industry relationships still depend on individual contacts, occasional events or short projects. This makes collaboration difficult to sustain and even harder to scale. Researchers may develop technically sound solutions without enough information about demand, purchasing behaviour, manufacturing constraints or distribution. Industry, in turn, may struggle to locate the right expertise, equipment or intellectual property within the country’s research institutions.
The roundtable argued that industry should enter the process before a prototype is complete. Companies can help define the original problem, test whether a solution addresses a real market need, provide technical specifications, open pilot environments and clarify what evidence an investment committee or customer will require. Early engagement also gives researchers a clearer view of cost, competition and the route through which a product might reach users.
This requires more than memoranda of understanding. Institutions need active industry liaison structures, joint research programmes, clear challenge statements and people who are accountable for moving each collaboration forward. A signed agreement is useful only when it results in shared work, access to facilities, timely decisions and a path to adoption.
Commercialisation is a sequence not a single event
A recurring problem in the discussion was the broken sequence between research, patenting, prototyping, validation, certification, business formation, production and market entry. A project may advance through one stage and then stop because the next institution, decision or source of money is unclear.
Commercialisation support also varies sharply between institutions. Some universities have innovation hubs or intellectual property offices. Others have no consistent process for assessing commercial potential, assigning ownership, preparing a business case or supporting a research team after the prototype stage. Academic incentives often continue to reward publication more clearly than licensing, enterprise creation or successful adoption.
A national commercialisation pathway should therefore define the evidence and support required at each stage. An idea needs a different assessment from a validated prototype. A prototype ready for certification needs different expertise from a business preparing for production. Making those stages visible would help researchers understand the next step and allow funders to direct the right form of support to the right level of risk.
Finance must match the stage of development
Early research and proof-of-concept work cannot be financed on the same terms as an established business. At that point, technical uncertainty is high, revenue may not exist and the team may still be testing whether the problem and solution are correctly defined. Ordinary commercial lending is rarely designed for that risk.
Participants proposed a mix of public seed funding, proof-of-concept grants, prototype and testing support, matching grants, venture capital, blended finance and corporate co-investment. The important point is not to create a longer list of funding programmes. It is to connect each instrument to a clear stage gate, with published selection criteria, milestones and decisions on follow-on support.
The meeting also raised concern about the research ecosystem’s reliance on donor funding. One contribution estimated that 74 per cent of funding entering the ecosystem is donor-driven. The figure requires sector-wide validation, but the underlying concern was widely shared: Kenya needs more domestic financing from government, industry and long-term investment vehicles if research priorities are to remain aligned with national needs and survive beyond individual projects.
Standards belong at the beginning
For many innovators, standards and certification appear near the end of product development. By then, a team may discover that materials, measurements, safety requirements or testing methods do not meet the relevant standard. Correcting the design at that stage costs more and can delay market entry.
The Kenya Bureau of Standards contribution made a strong case for bringing standards, metrology and regulatory advice into projects from the concept stage. Researchers should know the technical requirements of the intended market while they are designing the product. Where African standards are harmonised, this preparation can also improve the product’s prospects in regional markets.
Cost remains a real barrier, particularly for smaller institutions, TVETs and individual innovators. A workable national pathway may need pooled testing services, vouchers or co-financing for selected projects. Shared access would allow promising innovations to meet essential requirements without forcing every institution to build the same technical capacity.
Clear intellectual property terms can unlock partnerships
Industry will hesitate to invest where ownership is uncertain. Researchers will also hesitate where the distribution of future revenue is opaque. Questions about the rights of the institution, researcher, student and commercial partner can stop a project before technical or financial discussions begin.
The roundtable called for clearer institutional intellectual property policies and adaptable model terms for industry partnerships. These should establish how ownership is determined, how benefits are shared and how decisions are made when a project moves from research into a separate enterprise or licensing arrangement. Predictability would reduce negotiation time and give all parties a fairer basis for entering the relationship.
Kenya needs to see its own capabilities
A company looking for a specialist researcher, a laboratory or a particular technology should not have to rely on chance introductions. Yet Kenya lacks a current, reliable and visible inventory of institutional strengths, leading researchers, major equipment, patents, prototypes and products ready for commercial support.
The State Department asked universities to identify three areas of institutional strength and the leading researchers within them. This exercise can become the foundation for a broader national capability repository. If kept current and validated, the repository could help government direct funding, help institutions form complementary clusters and help investors locate relevant opportunities more quickly.
The same approach should apply to research infrastructure. Specialised equipment is expensive, and duplication is difficult to justify where existing facilities are underused. A national facilities map, supported by clear rules on access, scheduling, pricing and maintenance, would allow institutions to use each other’s assets and focus new investment where there is a genuine gap.
TVETs should be part of the commercialisation pathway
TVET institutions occupy an important position between applied research, fabrication, practical skills and production. They also run regional and national innovation competitions that surface working solutions from students and trainers. Too often, however, these innovations stop after the competition because there is no structured route into testing, finance, industry pilots or production.
A stronger system would include TVETs in competitive research funding and industry challenge programmes. It would connect them with university research expertise, standards bodies, shared equipment and companies able to support manufacturing or market entry. This would recognise the practical contribution of TVET institutions and improve the chances that competition-stage ideas become usable products.
The capability already exists
Several contributions showed that Kenya is not beginning from an empty page. National Museums of Kenya described work to document indigenous knowledge, secure prior informed consent, support value addition and connect knowledge holders with investors. KEBS cited joint standards development for traditional alcoholic beverages and collaboration with Dedan Kimathi University of Technology on a locally produced patented dosimeter prototype.
Participants also discussed a multi-institution project cataloguing African herbs and the need for a repeatable framework for intellectual property collaboration. CABI described a needs-led approach to turning research into knowledge products such as applications, portals, courses and subscription services. TVET representatives pointed to existing innovation competitions as a potential pipeline for industry-sponsored challenges and scale-up.
These examples matter because they reveal the building blocks of a national system. Knowledge documentation, standards development, intellectual property arrangements, user testing and investor engagement are already happening. The next task is to connect these practices so that innovators do not have to rebuild the pathway for every project.
What should be ready for ATLC 2026
ATLC 2026 creates a useful deadline. The conference will convene government, industry, academia, research organisations, investors, innovators and international partners in Nairobi on 22 and 23 October. The roundtable proposed that Kenya should arrive with a clear position and a first set of practical opportunities rather than a general statement of intent.
Five outputs would give the roundtable a concrete continuation:
- A concise Kenyan position paper that records the commercialisation priorities and proposed institutional responsibilities.
- An initial capability inventory covering institutional niches, leading researchers, major facilities, patents, prototypes and market-ready innovations.
- A limited number of pilot clusters selected on the basis of demonstrated institutional strength, national need and credible industry demand.
- A screened portfolio of innovations with clear technical, standards, intellectual property, financing and team-readiness information.
- Structured deal rooms and one-to-one meetings that match selected projects with investors, corporate partners, pilot sites, testing support and distribution channels.
Screening will be important. Investors and companies need a manageable pipeline of projects whose readiness has been assessed. Institutions need to be honest about what each innovation still requires. A project seeking proof-of-concept funding should not be presented as market-ready, while a validated product should not remain trapped in another general exhibition.
The work must continue after the conference
The success of this effort will depend on what happens after 23 October. A small implementation structure should assign owners, timelines and measures to the agreed actions. Progress should be visible in the number of complete institutional profiles, functioning clusters, projects receiving stage-appropriate finance, early engagements with standards bodies, shared facilities accessed and commercial agreements concluded.
Longer-term measures should follow the outcomes that matter: licences, spin-out companies, products launched, revenue generated, jobs created and improvements in public services. These indicators would help government and institutions move beyond counting publications, patents or event participation and show how research contributes to the economy and society.
The roundtable made clear that Kenya’s research-to-market gap cannot be solved by one institution. Universities cannot provide every commercial capability. Industry cannot invest confidently without visible and well-prepared opportunities. Standards bodies and regulators cannot help if they enter too late. Funders cannot allocate capital effectively without a staged pathway and comparable information.
ATLC 2026 offers a place to bring those responsibilities together. The immediate opportunity is to carry a credible Kenyan position into the conference, present selected innovations to people who can help move them forward and agree on the structure that will keep the work going. Kenya already has much of the research and talent it needs. The task now is to build a route that reliably takes that work beyond the laboratory.
Learn more and register for ATLC 2026 www.africaforum.tech/conference
