Funding academic research that the industry values

The Australian Marketing Institute and ANZMAC (Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy) today announced a new grants programme (to the value of AUD 30,000) for industry-applied research, to help bridge the gap between academia and industry.

A research study* undertaken by UQ Business School and the Department of Marketing at Macquarie University in 2021, highlighted the nature of the marketing academic-practitioner gap in Australia; and included the following aspects from their research:“academics exist in a separate world – a parallel universe with no connection or relevance to their world of practice, except indirectly (and in another world and time zone) as educators of marketing practitioners and managers.”

“academics have weak relationships with practitioners as their customers, which they describe as “no contact”, “not reaching out”, and “no collaboration”. Most interviewees agree they have no contact with academics.”

A key component of the Australian Marketing Institute’s (AMI’s) charter is to facilitate relevant research for the advancement of marketing practice that will have a beneficial impact on business, consumers and society as a whole.

“A goal of the AMI is to provide direction and support for research involving marketing academics in Australia, and to encourage collaborations between academics and industry,” outlined John Clay Chair of the AMI Professional Advancement Committee.

 “Although many marketing academics have great linkages into the industry, there is still much work to do and we hope the introduction of this new grants programme will be a small step in bridging the academia–practitioner gap.”

“In addition to the monetary component provided by the AMI and ANZMAC, we are pleased to announce that Tableau, a market-leading visual analytics software platform, has also come on board as a research partner”

The pandemic brought on by COVID-19, supply disruptions, national tensions, the drive for a low-carbon future and increasing adoption of digital technology, has wrought an incredible change in the global economy. This will have long-term effects on consumer behaviour, the marketplace, branding and communication strategies, market regulation and public policy, global business and more.

Whilst companies pursue their own company-specific marketing research, there is a need for high-quality basic research on current marketing practice issues.  With this in mind, we have identified several important research topics for 2023-2024. These have been selected from topics on the current Marketing Science Institute research priorities list that was developed in consultation with senior marketing professionals within the business, government and the NFP sector. We have refined these topics for the Australian and New Zealand marketplace along the following six areas:

• Delivering customer value
• The evolving landscape of martech and advertising
• Tools for capturing information to fuel growth
• The rise of omnichannel promotion and distribution
• Innovation, new product development and commercialization
• Marketing’s role in Sustainability / ESG (Environment, Social and Governance issues)

Linda Robinson, President of ANZMAC, outlined “This partnership between the largest marketing academic and practitioner organisations in the region to provide joint funding for academic research on industry-relevant topics underscores our commitment to addressing the academic-practitioner gap. We look forward to supporting research on the industry-led topics and providing funding to foster collaborations between academics in our member Universities and industry partners.”

The deadline for submissions will be 1 March 2023. Initial feedback from the AMI-ANZMAC Academic Grants Committee should be received around one month after that.  Respondents will have three weeks to reply in writing to the feedback.  The final decision by the AMI-ANZMAC Academic Grants Committee is expected to be announced in May 2023.