Kenya’s research community wants a staged financing system and earlier industry involvement to help more locally developed technologies make the leap from the laboratory to the market.
Universities, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, research bodies, regulators and private firms set out the priorities at a research commercialisation roundtable in Nairobi, held ahead of the Africa Technology Leadership Conference (ATLC) 2026 next month.
Participants examined why promising work often stalls somewhere between the laboratory, validation, certification, investment and market entry.
Science, Research and Innovation Principal Secretary Shaukat Abdulrazak said the country has no shortage of talent or ideas, but struggles to convert them into commercial value.
“We are producing knowledge. Do we have the talent and ideas? The answer is yes. The question is whether we can convert more of this knowledge, consistently and sustainably,” Prof Abdulrazak said.
“The country must show clearer results from investment in universities and research institutions by converting more research into enterprises, jobs, useful products and measurable public benefit,” he said.
Prof Abdulrazak called for closer ties between public institutions and the private sector, with industry taking part in research from the start rather than stepping in only once a prototype is ready.
The stakeholders proposed a financing pathway that separates the stages of innovation, from ideation and proof of concept to prototyping, validation, commercialisation and scale.
They also called for more domestic funding, including public money, industry investment, matching grants, blended finance and long-term capital matched to the risk at each stage.
Other proposals include grouping institutions into focused clusters, backed by a national repository of expertise, facilities and research output, as well as wider access to shared laboratories.
The Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) urged innovators to consider standards from the early stages of product development rather than treating compliance as a final hurdle before market entry.
Participants further called for affordable testing support for smaller institutions and innovators, and clearer rules on intellectual property ownership and benefit-sharing so researchers, institutions, students and commercial partners can enter projects with more certainty.
The roundtable also sought a defined role for TVET institutions in the research ecosystem.
Its outcomes will feed into a Kenyan position paper for ATLC 2026, set for October 22 and 23 at the Argyle Grand Hotel in Nairobi.
Ahead of the conference, participating institutions are expected to identify their strongest research areas, leading researchers, major facilities and promising innovations for an initial national capability inventory.
A first batch of innovations will be screened and matched with investors, corporate partners and technical institutions through deal rooms and one-on-one meetings at the conference.
“We are here to reflect and prepare ourselves to be part of the upcoming Africa Technology Leadership Conference in October by shaping what we want to find and what we want to give there,” said Prof Vasey Mwaja, chair of the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI).
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