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Valuable R&D results available to industry
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Strong university/industry co-operation and collaboration can accelerate the transfer of scientific knowledge into technological innovations, potentially benefiting the wider society, economy and environment.
Increasingly, the industrial and commercial sectors aim to strengthen competitiveness, innovation and wealth creation through collaboration with publicly funded R&D organisations. Knowledge and technology transfer from universities to industry can be achieved in a number of ways - through dissemination in journals, conferences and seminars; by direct collaboration in consultancies, joint research programmes and projects; through licencing of university intellectual property rights (IPR); and the creation of spin-off companies.
Key incentive for industry to collaborate
The licencing of intellectual property and patents are a key incentive for industry to increase collaboration with universities, and to turn research results into commercial products. Academic research results require significant investment pre-market; patents provide the required exclusivity and incentive for commercial enterprises to provide funding during the pre-market development phase. However, while the technical information is available in patent documentation, the technical language used may prevent potential funders from identifying possible opportunities. Therefore, the risk remains that valuable academic research results remain unknown and unexploited by industry, potentially impeding the development of the knowledge economy.
Research information systems
Research information systems can facilitate the dissemination of knowledge from university to industry, policy makers and other universities, and across disciplines and countries. They do this by providing wider and easier access to the research capabilities, resources and outputs of publicly funded research.
Such systems can provide a mechanism for the input and retrieval of specific information on R&D outputs such as products, patents and publications. These can be retrieved easily by entrepreneurs and potential funders to mine new ideas. Research information systems, such as those based on the CERIF (common European research information format) data structure can also allow for conditions such as IPR to be stored, thus facilitating negotiation of a fair apportionment of finance between the commercial and the research organisations.
Different types of research users may be interested more generally in academic expertise, research advances, and in sources of ideas, advice, assistance and information. Research information systems enable research users such as policy makers, research-based businesses, SMEs, journalists, funding bodies, and enterprises to find out more general information about publicly funded research activities, current projects, experts and organisations, and the linkages between them.
Thus, entrepreneurs and other potential funders are equipped to take a proactive role both in the commercialisation of university research results, and in facilitating and stimulating collaborative R&D projects with universities to develop new technologies and knowledge relevant to business, and creating long-term partnerships.
Limitations and future developments
The limitations of many existing research information systems are that they are too often out of date and the most valuable and interesting information may be missing as it is commercially confidential. Individuals in organisations are often the knowledge nodes and they do not commit the valuable information which they store to databases.
Future developments of research information systems will most likely focus on managing knowledge more effectively and adding value by:
· ensuring information is kept up to date
· providing non-technical summaries of research projects and results
· suggesting possible alternative applications of research results, products and services
· using more sophisticated systems and technology - such as integrating intelligent brokering/management functions, or the use of data mining software to analyse information according to users' needs
· integrating knowledge organisation systems such as classification schemes, thesauri and using standardised metadata
· taking advantage of developments such as the semantic web, GRIDs and open access
· including fora to develop into ad hoc communities of practice and research networks to enable knowledge sharing.
If you have any questions about the subjects covered in this white paper or you would like to find out more about how Oakleigh Consulting could help your organisation, please contact us on 0161 835 4100 or email us.
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