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BASE PROGRAM

About The Base Program

Cruxes Innovation’s Base Program is a hands-on, experiential learning program delivered on-line. It’s aimed at individual early-stage researchers, such as Masters by Research students, PhD students, and postdocs, but it's valuable for researchers at any stage of their career who are curious about creating impact with their research.

The Base Program helps researchers understand the importance of creating positive impact with their research, and gives them the tools and skills they need to do so.

The Base Program equips you with:

Communication skills to articulate the value of your research
Tools and methods to identify and engage with potential industry, government and community partners
Skills to uncover the problems that potential partners want to solve, and how your research might help.

What will I learn?

Massive Impact, drawing on the science of motivation, systems thinking and impact planning to stretch your thinking about the positive difference your research or idea might make in the world.
Gaddie Pitch, a simple framework to explain your research to anyone in a minute, and start a conversation.
Research to Impact Map, drawing on lean innovation tools and the stakeholder discovery process to identify critical assumptions about the value of your research to potential partners and end-users.
Stakeholder discussions: validate your assumptions about the value of your research by engaging with potential partners in industry, government, and the community, and understanding their problems. Learn the art of how to initiate this engagement, and how to guide these discussions to get real insights into the way these partners see the world.
Intellectual property 101: a brief introduction to the role and value of IP in creating impact, and basic tips on how to deal with IP and disclosure considerations in stakeholder discussions.

Time commitment

The total time commitment for the Base Program, including the kick-off webinar, self-paced modules and activities, and coaching, is approximately 15 hours. The program is recommended to be completed within four weeks of the kick-off webinar.

Cruxes Innovation runs Base Program kick-off webinars three times each year.

Program Flexibility and Scalability

Our programs can be delivered face to face, online, or blended, and can be customised to meet your needs.

View Base Program Case Study

Base Program Case Study

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Testimonials

"The Base Program has helped me adjust the way I approach and engage with industry partners.

Instead of diving into technical details and science challenges, I now initiate conversations about how industry partners are viewing the project and its connections into their broader innovation strategy. "

Dr. Philip Keymer, postdoctoral researcher from the Biosolids ITTC, joined the Base Program to develop skills for successfully pitching his research proposals to industry partners.

Base Program FAQ

Q: What dates will the Base Program run next year?

A: The Base Program has three intakes per year, generally in March, July and September.

Q: What’s the difference between the Base Program and the entrepreneurship training programs that my university offers to HDRs?

A: The Base Program helps researchers understand the importance of creating positive impact with their research and capabilities, and gives them the tools and skills they need to do so. The Base Program equips you with communication skills to articulate the value of your research and of the transferable skills you’re developing as a researcher. It also gives you tools and methods to identify and engage with potential industry, government, and community partners, to uncover the problems that potential partners want to solve, and how your research and capabilities might help. So, the Base Program helps researchers create impact by engaging with existing organisations in industry, government and the community. Universities’ entrepreneurship training programs, on the other hand, are aimed at researchers who want to create impact by becoming founders of new start-up or spin-out companies.

Q: What types of organisations sponsor their HDRs and ECRs to do the Base Program? What do these sponsors want their HDRs and ECRs to get from the Base program?

A: The Base Program is widely used by ARC Industry Transformation Training Centres (ITTCs) to ensure that all their HDRs and ECRs, from all their partner universities, are prepared for their industry placements. Impact-focused universities and ARC Centres of Excellence use it to equip their HDRs and ECRs to create impact with their research and capabilities (transferable skills).

Q: What does Cruxes Innovation do to gather participants’ feedback on the Base Program?

A: Cruxes Innovation gathers participants’ feedback on the Base Program by these means:

Learning reflections are included at several points in the Base Program online modules to collect feedback from participants as they progress through the program.
As they complete the on-line modules, participants are asked to submit three pieces of work, applying the Base Program tools and frameworks to their own research. The Base Program facilitators provide comments and suggestions on each of these pieces of work. The Base Program then has a “360 degree feedback” process, inviting participants to provide feedback on the facilitator’s feedback.
Each participant is invited to schedule a 30-minute coaching call with the facilitators when they complete most of the on-line modules. In these coaching calls, the facilitators ask each participant for feedback on the program.
Each participant is asked to complete an on-line survey at the end of program.
Participants are invited to a debrief webinar a few weeks after program completion, where they are asked again for feedback on the program.
Cruxes Innovation also asks program sponsors (university researcher education and development managers, ITTC managers, CoE COOs) for their feedback on the program, and for additional feedback they receive directly from their participants.

Q: What recent changes has Cruxes Innovation made to the Base Program in response to this feedback?

A: Here are some examples.

Feedback: discussion of intellectual property is included in some universities’ researcher training.
Improvements: IP content in the Base Program focuses on IP as an enabler of industry engagement. Participants are encouraged to meet their university’s IP custodians for IP process details.

Feedback: please clarify what the Base Program does to help with transferable skills development and seeking jobs in industry.
Improvements:
- New content and activity were added to the Base Program kick-off workshop on articulating the value of research training through the lens of industry.
- A new activity was added in the kick-off workshop to expand the use of the Research to Impact Map as a tool to develop skills in communicating transferable skills to industry.
- Adjustments were made to the Research to Impact Map to emphasize articulation of transferable skills.

Feedback: we want more feedback on and practice with delivering a concise and engaging ‘pitch’ about our research and capabilities.
Improvements:
- An additional feedback opportunity is now embedded into the relevant online module.
- The Base Program debrief session now includes an opportunity for participants to deliver their Gaddie pitch and get feedback.

Q: As a Base Program participant, what must I do to be regarded as having completed the program? What recognition do I get from completing it?

A: To earn the digital credential which recognises a participant's attainment of skills and knowledge gained through the Base Program, a participant needs to demonstrate that they have:

Completed at least 70% of the Base Program online learning modules/activities.
Developed a Research to Impact Map, articulated a research impact vision, and identified the critical assumptions that underpin the pathways to translating their research to impact.
Developed a conversation plan for stakeholder interviews.

Q: What if I can’t make it to the scheduled kick-off workshop at the start of the program?

A: It is recommended that you attend the scheduled kick-off workshop to get the best experience of the program. However, in the event that life gets in the way, the session will be recorded and participants can catch up by watching the recording.

Q: What if I don’t have intentions of commercialising my research? What will I get from the Base Program?

A: There is still immense value in participating in Base Program for researchers who don't have intentions on pursuing a commercialisation pathway. We recognise that commercialisation is only one of the many types of impact pathways that researchers can take to translate their knowledge and ideas into real-world impact. The Base Program has been specifically designed to equip participants with skills and frameworks that are valuable for all the various pathways to impact.