Why UniSA is putting partners at the centre of its strategy
In this episode, we are joined by Esther Roberts, Deputy Director for Business Development – Enterprise Partnerships at the University of South Australia, to explore how they have built a partner-first engagement model through its Enterprise Hub. Esther shares how the university has reshaped its culture, structures and systems to simplify collaboration with industry and create long-term, strategic partnerships.
From sector-aligned teams to integrated service delivery, this conversation offers practical insights for anyone looking to transform how their institution engages with the outside world.
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Transcript
Sarah Jaber:
Hello everyone! My name is Sarah Jaber, I am a Director at UIIN and I am going to be facilitating this chat today with Esther Roberts, who is the Deputy Director for Business Development Enterprise Partnerships at the University of South Australia. I am really pleased to have you here, Esther.
We have been working together for a number of years, and it has been amazing to see the development over the years, and that is what we are going to be talking about today. We will be hearing the story of the Enterprise Hub at the University of South Australia.
Maybe just a brief introduction about Esther. As I mentioned, she leads a team of business development managers to partner with industry and researchers to address diverse and critical challenges across various sectors such as health, defense, space, agribusiness, education, the creative industries, and advanced manufacturing.
Esther, welcome.
Esther Roberts:
Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Jaber:
I know a few years ago, actually not even a few years ago, last year, you presented the story at our conference in Madrid. I know it has been a few years in the making where you are today.
So maybe you can tell us a bit about what is the Enterprise Hub and what inspired its creation.
Esther Roberts:
No problem, Sarah. Exactly, the Enterprise Hub was created over a number of years, but it was really launched in 2023 with the intention of simplifying engagement for industry.
So, having very much a partner-centric approach to navigating the whole university, we bring together the commercialisation experts, the research office and the business development team, as well as an operations team, to support the function of the whole hub.
I think one of the unique points is that it is a physical space for industry to enter the university. It is really a front door. I should also acknowledge that we are meeting on Kaurna land. On the traditional lands of the Kaurna people, we have been gifted a name which is Yangadlitya Kumangka, which means “for the future together”, which I think that has a very fitting name for the hub.
It is bringing together all the aspects of the university under one roof and just making it really easy for us to engage with each other as well as industry.
So, there is a physical space as well downstairs where we host industry. We have seminar rooms and meeting rooms, as well as the startup community within the building.
Sarah Jaber:
I was in the building a couple of years ago. It is really nice what you have done with it.
Esther Roberts:
Yes, and I think that is one of the unique things. The staff are actually really proud and happy to come into the office. That environment really does make a difference. I remember when I was interviewed for this role, reading through the information what stood out to me was the slogan saying, “space matters”.
It was post-COVID, and for me to get back in, to engage with internal and external stakeholders, that was really appealing to me, coming from industry.
Sarah Jaber:
Yes, that is great. I like the name you were given, “for the future together”. It is it is very inspirational and nice to have that connection with the traditional Kauna community.
Esther Roberts:
Yes, and it reflects the whole university as well. And I think that is another unique point. We are not just facilitating research, we are bringing together all the services across the university and creating a holistic offering to our partners, deepening those relationships.
Sarah Jaber:
That is great. Maybe you weren’t there at the start, but what was the main driver? Was it just this feeling of wanting to bring these services together? What kind of motivation drove that that change?
Esther Roberts:
I think other universities listening to this would relate to the common, I suppose, concern from industry, which is navigating a really large organisation and knowing who to go to and for what. So, the intention was very much to be more responsive and also capture data to shape our research directions and our service offerings.
For that, we implemented a CRM system as well, that had been selected by the time I arrived. So, my role was actually to capture that data, look at our relationships and how we approach it and make it more efficient, and as I said, deepen those relationships. It is actually about longevity and sustainability of the institution and that includes the triple bottom line.
So, it is not just research revenue, it is impact as well.
Sarah Jaber:
I really like the term you used just at the beginning, “partner-centric”. That’s what came to mind when we were thinking about this conversation, this concept of partner-first or partner-centric.
Can you tell us a little bit more about it? What does that mean for you and for the university? What does it look like in practice?
Esther Roberts:
Sure. I mentioned earlier that we have got an operations team. So, for partners that are new to the university, you can either walk through the physical door, or you can visit our website and log an inquiry, which is triaged within 24 hours by our concierge. So, we have a concierge on the front desk, but we also have an operations team behind this.
It is not just about the people; it is about having the systems to support the people to be responsive and also translating our research to industry.
I think that is a big challenge for this community, and we have talked about it at conferences as well. It is actually taking the time to listen to the partner, understanding them, and that CRM system can inform how we approach a partner as well.
When we go the other way and we have identified an opportunity, we can look at who else they are working with in the university. So, although the business development managers in my team are often the custodians, if industry wants to deal directly with an academic, they are welcome to do that.
We would just like to capture that data so that we can bring the pieces together and really offer a quality partnership and service.
Sarah Jaber:
Great. These custodians, navigators, concierges… I think those are all nice terms, so the partners come through one entry point.
Esther Roberts:
Correct.
Sarah Jaber: Yes, great. In the work we have done or what we have seen with universities around the world, these kinds of changes are very challenging, as you need to juggle multiple priorities and bring various people together.
I am curious to hear from your perspective about the journey you have been on. What were some of the biggest internal hurdles or shifts that you needed to address? Was it resourcing? Was it culture? Was it financial? How did that happen for you?
Esther Roberts:
I can speak from my personal experience coming from industry myself, being in industry engagement roles. When I was ready to change careers, I saw the advertisement for this role, and I could see that it was resourced. And it is very rare that you get the opportunity to recruit your own team. So, I inquired about the resourcing and I was satisfied that it was at the appropriate level to do a really good job of industry engagement at UniSA. So, resourcing was more of a challenge in terms of finding the right people with the right mindset, and that is something at the center of what we do.
It is actually trainability and having that mindset and understanding industry, being able to translate what industry needs to our academics and also the other way around.
But I would say one of the biggest challenges was probably the culture shift internally. I took it upon myself to listen for the first six months, really understand our own capabilities, understand the barriers and concerns about the model, because it was quite a different culture and mindset what we were trying to create. So not rushing into anything, especially coming from industry, because I had to learn the language here so that I could actually speak both ways as well. So, taking that time.
But also, the challenge was wanting to be able to run and get outcomes because we are a business development team and that is our nature, but we had to pull ourselves back a little bit by implementing the CRM, which is a pretty well-known challenge, as it is only as good as the users: building the awareness of the of the system, working with the operations team to roll out training for academic staff… We have a number of licenses that we review on a regular basis. So, it is really increasing that uptake of the use of the CRM, creating awareness outside of our brand.
I think having a brand was a really good selling point and it made our jobs a lot easier, because we could build the story around the brand. Also, having the building, which is a really unique building in Adelaide. I don’t know if there are any Adelaide listeners or people or Australians that have been to Adelaide, but we are on 9 Light Square, which has got a really quirky kind of a history.
We paid homage to that in the design of the building. We have maintained some of those aspects and we tell that story. It was a theater restaurant at one stage. Its original purpose was a tannery and it was a nightclub that hosted acts like The Cure and The Smiths. So, we had that story and I think it is that point of difference really, which invokes that curiosity and gets people into the physical space to see what we actually do.
So that takes time. And I would say to anyone that is considering emulating this model to be realistic and perhaps give yourself three to five years to really move from that establishment to delivery mode.
I feel like we have been moving into that delivery mode to the point where we are measuring our pipeline and reviewing those partnerships and we are creating more of an account management process for our partners, where we are actually doing quite a lot of work and just measuring our performance as well.
So, we have developed joint KPIs, and some of those KPIs aren’t just revenue-driven, but they are about behaviors. And that goes back to the culture. Creating that culture doesn’t happen overnight either, it can be challenging.
From memory, we had a small number of people that were original, so we tapped into that internal knowledge, but then bringing people in with different perspectives as well and getting to know each other, the human factor as well, and also bringing together the research office with us was hard.
So, we are there in the same physical space. We have town halls, things like that. It took an extensive communication plan to deliver this.
Sarah Jaber:
You touched on a number of really important factors. I like what you said about the space, like it tells a story, right? So, people are drawn to that and you have this feeling of, “I want to be part of this”. I think that does play a big role.
I have a couple of things to touch on from what you just shared about the culture change. You talked about the CRM, you talked about building trust, but how did you handle that from an academic perspective?
We often see that there is a bit of resistance to change. There are some researchers or academics that very clearly want to engage with industry or other external stakeholders, and some that are a little bit hesitant when you ask them to share some of their contacts, like they put up the walls. Have you encountered any of that?
Esther Roberts:
Absolutely. When I went out and engaged with the deans, pretty much as soon as I joined the team, while I was recruiting new business development managers, I found out it comes down to respect and listening. I have mentioned that word quite a few times, but listening to start with, listening to the concerns.
I think in any role, but especially business development, it is about reputation and delivery. So, we gave ourselves enough time, probably 18 months, to really build our reputation and deliver on our promises. While I was working with the staff to onboard and coach them, I let them know there is this drive, which is almost like a sales drive, to get those outcomes and land deals.
I think Uni SA has been really good at supporting us and understanding that it can take time and that you can burn relationships if you rush things too much. So, it was really just about proving ourselves for 18 months with the academics and being visible.
Whilst we have got this beautiful physical space at 9 Lights Square, we are only required in the office on Tuesdays so that we can collaborate with our colleagues. The rest of the time, the business development managers are out on different campuses and academic units engaging with our academics. We spend a lot of time working in those spaces and being visible as well.
One of my own KPIs at the beginning was to actually get to a point where there was one or two particular individuals that would class as doubters. They weren’t opposition, but they were doubters. They were actually saying, “We want more business development support. We like the model.”
And that to me was like my ultimate measure of success for my role.
Sarah Jaber:
Yes, for sure. That is a big achievement.
Esther Roberts:
One of the things I am most proud of is actually winning the hearts and minds of the internal stakeholders, because that can be more challenging sometimes.
And that it is reflected when we survey at the end of each year. So, our KPIs are tied to internal and external outcomes. We survey our industry partners, but we also survey our internal customers, and we take note of that. I always find the comments more valuable to a degree than an actual rating as such. We do look at that at the end of each year and think about how we can improve or what we are doing well, and maybe do more of that.
Sarah Jaber:
Yes, exactly. Going back to the setup and the structures, people are often curious, especially when we are talking about a more centralised or integrated unit. You mentioned bringing together business development, commercialisation and other different areas of external engagement.
Can you tell us just a little bit about how it is set up? Is it really a central unit? Does it report to the Deputy Vice Chancellor? How is it set up?
Esther Roberts:
Yes, we are centralised and we report to the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and Enterprise. We tend not to focus on the centralisation, we focus on the culture and the operational processes and the ability to navigate the whole university. But we do, yes. We report to the Director of Enterprise Partnerships, which brings in that and the auspices of commercialisation. The Innovation Collaboration Center, the business development team, and the Defense and Space team all report into that portfolio. So, it is a centralised model.
The other interesting thing, which I think works well, is the alignment of business development managers by sector. We are not aligned to faculties or specific colleges as such. We are actually aligned to the industry sector. I think that makes it a little bit easier at times to engage with industry.
Going back to your original question about the challenges, that was a sticking point internally to, I guess, get the academics on board with that sector-based approach because it was deemed as a resource for them.
But in actual fact, we increased the resourcing for business development across the university. So, for example, we have two business development managers for health because we used the CRM to look at the revenue and the breadth and depth of the relationships, and we aligned our resources based on data.
Sarah Jaber:
That is a great approach. How many business development managers are there?
Esther Roberts:
I have got nine and we have got two for Defense and Space as well.
Sarah Jaber:
That is great. I think that sector alignment, as you said, resonates with industry, and it would enable a more interfaculty or cross-disciplinary type of collaboration.
Esther Roberts:
I should add that there are complimentary roles in the rest of the university as well. They are managed the way that I suppose those academic units want to manage them, but we do have a mechanism called the Industry Partnership Network within the university, so that is bringing external facing people from across the university into the Enterprise Hub and sharing that knowledge and the tools that we are all developing amongst ourselves. It is almost like a community within the university as well, which has been really valuable.
For example, we recently designed and printed a really great document on green transition in South Australia, took that to Japan and had some success in engaging in Japan. So, we shared that with our colleagues out in the academic units, which enables us to have those conversations about the challenges that you are facing with each other as well. So, I would recommend that as an addition if you are thinking about centralising.
Sarah Jaber:
Yes, having that community and that sharing of knowledge is really valuable. Exactly.
Esther Roberts:
The other initiative that our team developed it is actually about supporting our academics in industry engagement. Because we can’t be everywhere all the time, we run a program called the Enterprise Club, where we invite academics to come and pitch their ideas and their research to the whole team.
You are not just getting a business development manager that looks after that sector, you are getting different perspectives in the whole team.
We bring our commercialisation colleagues into that, so you are getting a commercialisation spin as well. And I guess it is a safe place to pitch your research and get advice, as well as for us to share our networks if we think that there is a potential industry partner that would be interested in what they are working on. So, it is really quite informal but structured at the same time to achieve that outcome.
Sarah Jaber:
That is great. Do you have any incentives or reward and recognition structures for academics in place?
Esther Roberts:
For academics I think that is not built by the Enterprise Partnerships unit, so that lives in the academic units. But we do have staff awards and initiatives and personal development fund that you can win for your contribution.
Speaking of performance development, we also have a performance scheme for our internal staff in the Enterprise Hub as well. What I have found, and I think this is a test to the culture and the type of people that we are lucky enough to work with, a lot of them are more driven by impact than revenue. But revenue is a reality, and we need that for sustainability. So that is why we have designed our KPIs to reward the right behaviours primarily.
We do acknowledge partnerships with our academics, as well through award nominations in Australia. We have won a number of awards for our apprenticeship scheme in our software degree. That was designed with four industry partners and is a unique scheme where people can study for their software degree, but they walk straight into a role with the employers that we have worked with, and they have got a job from day one pretty much, which is fairly unique for a university.
We put these nominations in for awards from the hub, so part of our job is actually to market what the academics are doing because they are not necessarily focused on that. They are just focused on what they are doing and what they are good at. But it helps to be acknowledged as well in Australia and to create awareness, so that people are taking those opportunities up.
Sarah Jaber:
That is really interesting. Esther, we have talked a lot about the journey you have been on. But I am also aware that UniSA is going through a lot of change at the moment with the merger to form Adelaide University, and I can imagine that is bringing a lot more opportunities and complexities.
So, looking a bit to the future, what does the future look like for the Enterprise Hub? What are you thinking as you go on this journey?
Esther Roberts:
Yes, we are very much in it. We are in the thick of it now. So, from January 1st next year we will be Adelaide University. We are joining with the University of Adelaide in South Australia to form this university. The way I look at it is we are actually amplifying what we do, we are expanding what we do and we will reach across more sectors and more opportunities in those sectors.
So, instead of just offering our UniSA capability to an industry partner, we can package it up with University of Adelaide capability as well. It is an enhanced offering. We will work across more precincts in South Australia; we will continue to work across regional South Australia. UniSA has sites in Whyalla, which is in the north. A lot of teaching, health and education. We are also in Mount Gambier, where we have got forestry, but then Adelaide has Roseworthy Agricultural College. So again, it is really amplifying what we are doing.
And on day one we will already be ranked 82nd globally. So that is exciting to just wake up in January and see that we are high in those rankings. We will be the largest domestic university in Australia. We are projecting 70,000 students and expected to contribute $4.7 billion to the local economy here.
It is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for those of us in the hub. That is not to say that it isn’t going to be challenging because just those numbers demonstrate the sheer volume of work we are going to be doing. And the intention is for us all to remain co-located, so colleagues will move into this space, and we will be knowledge sharing.
We are already having joint capability sessions with our colleagues from University of Adelaide, where we are at either end of a major main street in south Australia, in Adelaide, and we are already doing those capability sharing packs. We are developing an account management framework, a toolkit, for our staff to use and ensure that we are maintaining our service quality and offering to our industry partners, because that is always at the forefront of our minds, and letting the business development managers focus on that.
I have been involved in a lot of the design and have brought the staff in where I need to without over engineering it and just being ready for day one at the moment.
The other exciting thing is we will have colleagues joining us from government relations, for example, which we haven’t had in the past. So, there will be new colleagues coming in even more events. I think we had something like 870 meetings in the hub already. So, that will be a challenge, but it is also a great opportunity as well. We will also have access to facilities from both universities, more laboratory space… Just a bigger offering basically.
Sarah Jaber:
Sounds like an exciting time ahead.
Esther Roberts:
Building on what I have already done and taking the lessons that I have learnt.
Sarah Jaber:
Exactly. Especially what you have shared with us today, taking that forward building on the expertise and the knowledge that sits within both institutions.
Esther Roberts:
Tweaking it as well because we haven’t always gotten it right. So, actually, being open to ideas from people that aren’t as close to the project as well, which it has been good.
Sarah Jaber:
Esther, I am conscious of time. We have just gone over our allocated time, but if it is okay with you, I will ask you one final question.
You have talked about it as we have gone through, but if you could maybe leave one piece of advice for the listeners who maybe are going through something similar or are looking to establish more of this integrated, partner-centric approach, what is one thing you would advise them?
Esther Roberts:
I would say probably lead through listening. Don’t rush in. Give yourself time, make sure you have got the right tools and hire for mindset and the rest will follow.
Sarah Jaber:
Great. Esther, thank you so much for joining us today. It has been really nice to have you and to hear from you.
Really thanks everyone for listening in. If you are interested in other events, just check out www.uiin.org/events. We always have a range of great speakers lined up.
Esther, thanks again. Have a great evening and a great journey in the months ahead and I look forward to staying up to date with how things are developing.
Esther Roberts:
Thank you, Sarah.
Ready for more?
Curious about how universities are building stronger partnerships with industry? The article How leading universities build strategic university–industry partnerships shares best practices from institutions across the globe, revealing what it takes to design collaborations that deliver mutual value and lasting impact.
From another angle, the podcast Securing the Next Generation of STEM Talent, with ASML looks at how one of the world’s leading tech companies partners with universities to prepare students for the future of work and strengthen the STEM talent pipeline.
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