Why, despite a big government push, is research collaboration between industry and academia proving slow to take off? Joanne Birtwistle finds out
The official line is that in a globally competitive market, more companies should have proactive strategies to look for innovation from outside, be that from universities or small start-ups. To try and do all research and development (R&D) in-house is deemed not to be cost effective because it doesn't generate enough innovation. By downsizing internal R&D, companies should be freeing up cash to cherry pick from the world's experts and technology offerings. But the reality is that businesses are still unwilling to join the R&D dance.
Dr Rob Head is business manager for the science sector at the University of Liverpool. It is his job to see how the university can exploit its science base as part of the £3100m of research the university has going on each year. Head says the majority of the university's collaborations come about through it actively seeking out companies. "Very rarely does a company phone up and say: "Can you help me? I have a problem.' They tend to be very short-term things," he says. "With most organisations we go out and say: "Look, we know you do this. This is some new work we've got. We have a core science skill here.'"
Meanwhile, Mark Thompson, who is head of market development for The University of Manchester Intellectual Property (UMIP), says that whereas larger companies do tend to recognise a research need and approach the development managers to see if there is a good fit, smaller businesses are often referred to UMIP by support organisations. "Or sometimes there will be a research objective for an academic group and they'll look for a partner in industry," he adds.
There are questions around what businesses expect from the university, says Martino Picardo, general manager at the University of Manchester Incubator Company (UMIC). "I think there is a perception on the smaller business side that access to the universities is free, or that it should be," he says. "Smaller businesses have to come in with a more pragmatic view: if this is a service that is of value then the businesses will have to pay for that service."
When asked if he would like more companies to come knocking on his door, Head is unsure. "If they are realistic," he says. "I don't want to end up fending off a load of companies that have come to the wrong place. We do try to educate people as to what we do and show people the types of things we are doing so they can see links with their business."
The relationship between industry and academia can be a tough one to manage from both sides and those with a business development role in the universities have to allay a degree of apprehension from within. Indeed, Head describes his role as being "like a marriage guidance councillor".
Here the universities face a dilemma. Research and teaching are their core services and main revenue streams and this third leg of knowledge transfer and interaction with industry is not the preferred career path for many academics. "They didn't take an industrial job; they took an academic job and therefore it is different to what they normally do," says Head, adding that it is his job to make sure collaboration works for all parties.
UMIC's Picardo says a lot of evangelising still needs to be done by UMIP and UMIC to say that working with industry is good. "It's not going to tarnish your reputation, it won't affect your publication credibility ratio. Sometimes the best academics don't want to work with industry," he says, adding that the university's technology transfer office has a role in this, suggesting it might internally filter and assess which academics can and will deliver.
So does increased pressure resulting from the 2003 Lambert Report on collaboration between universities and business, coupled with the shift to make universities themselves more business like, mean they are becoming more aggressive when negotiating contract terms and intellectual property (IP) rights?
Thompson says Manchester's general view is that it's better to have a small percentage stake in a deal that flies than for a deal to not happen because parties couldn't agree. "Sometimes there are surprises when people come in and say: "How much equity would you expect to have for this amount of work.' They sometimes have quite high expectations and that's a matter of educating so they are comfortable that it is the norm. They don't always understand the depth of the activity and that it is worth quite a bit of time and effort," he says.
"Many universities are recognising that the old model of them holding a significant part of the shareholding is becoming increasingly difficult," says John Bickley, chief executive of Liverpool Science Park-based Genemation, which was spun out of Manchester University's medical school in 2002 with facial recognition technology.
"Technology is still perceived as very high risk for investors. You are asking people to put up a sum of money for great technology that is yet to be turned into a viable product. A lot of the risk resides with the people working in the company and the people providing the money. I think there has been a degree of rebalancing going on."
Bickley says that Manchester Innovation - now UMIP - played a supportive role for Genemation with aspects such as legal queries, business plans and patent issues. "They were there representing the universities interests but they were very supportive. It is in their interest to see these embryonic companies be successful," he says. "I see the university wanting to be able to point to successful spin-outs. That acts as an attractive magnet to companies wanting to invest in research projects and looking to the university as a beacon of clever ideas and being business friendly."
Most companies that have collaborated with the universities or have been involved in R&D have only positive things to say, so it seems the barrier on both sides is this unknown quantity. "The imaging science and biomedical engineering department at Manchester has always been active in looking to commercialise ideas," says Bickley. "The academics are commercially minded - they've been through the hoops before.
"To this day we have a very close relationship with the department. Because the two original founders came out of the department, there is a bond there. I've been impressed with the way the department has continued to work with its companies. In our case they are doing it because they just want to see us be successful. I find that very encouraging."
In fact, the arrangements for some companies collaborating with universities are positively relaxed. Penrith-based Primasonics is one such company, but perhaps that's because technical director Alex Bergus first came to the company on a product development project through the Knowledge Transfer Partnership scheme in 2002.
"The acoustic cleaning product was already up and running. I made a new model, effectively the next generation. To cope with the rising demand we had to make them more flexible so that you could pick from a number of standard products," he says. The company's technology uses sound waves to dislodge particles from the surface they bonded to and has applications for cleaning equipment in areas such as the food industry, cement silos, pharmaceuticals.
As well as using the University of Liverpool for its facilities and one-off consultancy work, a postgraduate student is doing a PhD there based on using Primasonics products for cleaning electrostatic precipitators - a filter that works by magnetising particles in gas streams and getting them to stick to metal plates. "It's fairly advanced stuff," says Bergus. "The company has to be willing to loan some equipment, which we are. He can go down any route he wants with that and there may be something in it for us."
But as universities work more with businesses they must tie down issues such as IP rights early on to prevent confusion further down the line. "It has to be handled contractually," says UMIC's Picardo. "There has to be agreement upfront on what the expectation is from both parties. Sometimes I think that is not done and it is handled much more loosely in the hope everything will go smoothly, but you know how life is."
In the last year the University of Manchester has taken a proactive approach to spin-ins to look for technologies in small or medium-sized businesses or other universities that have some synergy with the university's internal projects. Picardo says he sees change occurring: "I'm on the periphery of the tech transfer office and certainly in the last six months I've noticed a shift in their IP portfolios and the way that they are managing them, from spinning out everything to much more of a balanced perspective of spinning out some, licensing others and stopping others."
Also in: April 2007
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