Resolving the industry-research collaboration conundrum
Australia has long struggled with industry-research collaboration. ACM CRC's R&D Director, Sr Stephen van Duin, looks at how the country can ensure its R&D activities create impact and value.
“A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved” often gets attributed to longtime General Motors research and development boss Charles Kettering.
We have a problem understanding “industry-led” research, and I’d argue that – if Kettering is right – then we should start by asking “what does industry-led actually mean?”
Like “advanced manufacturing”, it’s a term that is used regularly, and generally without any thought as to what its meaning is.
And similar to advanced manufacturing, there is a problem that industry-led research lacks a standardised definition.
Australia is famously poor at industry-research collaboration, ranking last among OECD countries.
Much of my work in my role at the Australian Composites Manufacturing CRC has centred on balancing the interests of different R&D partners, each with their own motivations and objectives. Self-interest is a natural and understandable driver, as it is in most endeavours. Successful collaboration requires recognising that multiple stakeholders are involved, each with their own mix of primary and secondary interests.
Researchers want grant funding, opportunities to publish, and to advance their field of expertise. Businesses want results as quickly as possible, intellectual property that is protected, and outcomes that provide a competitive edge.
Impact and value
As R&D Director at the ACM CRC, I want to see real-world impact and ensure that the public funds we co-invest on behalf of the federal government are delivering value for Australia.
I’m happiest when an appropriate balance is struck and each stakeholder gets something out of the collaboration.
A recent publication by Cooperative Research Australia surveyed 13 organisations with “direct experience participating in CRCs and CRC-Ps”.
The report, CRC Catalyst, identified five factors present among the best outcomes.
Two involved stability of the CRC and early clarification of intellectual property arrangements – no surprises. The other three were:
- the industry problem is clearly defined at inception, with a shared understanding of the commercial opportunity;
- governance includes strong commercial capability alongside research leadership; and
- industry partners remain actively engaged in shaping research priorities, rather than acting only as funding participants.
Respondents also “stressed that governance must be deliberately designed to balance exploratory research with commercial discipline”, and that achieving that balance produced “materially stronger” outcomes.
Clearly, industry involvement contributes to good project results. And that’s a big part of why CRCs exist. The precise definition of what industry-led is, however, isn’t there for guidance.
Potholes in the pathway
If the findings above are what good looks like, then I’ve often seen the opposite.
One tell can be fluffy milestones and a poorly defined pathway to utilisation. Projects with a genuine commercial focus tend to exhibit much greater clarity and discipline in both areas.
Another challenge arises when industry engagement during project development is limited. I’ve encountered situations where an industry representative had signed an application after months of preparation, only to later discover there was a misalignment in expectations, leading to requests to revise project milestones shortly before kickoff.
My own understanding of “industry-led collaboration” is that it sees an industry partner actually write the proposal and direct what they want out of the project, rather than the research partner doing this on a business’s behalf.
There’s room for grey, as in everything else, but I have seen plenty of proposals that are purely researcher-led, where they have handled the project design and just thrown a topic over the fence.
There’s also the fact that about nine-tenths of Australia’s 47,000 employing manufacturing businesses are micro or small businesses, consisting of fewer than 20 people. This represents a giant pool of companies that might not have the bandwidth needed for a properly industry-led project.
I think it all comes down to two important questions.
“What’s the end point?” is the first one.
If there’s an end in mind, the other question is “what’s the pathway there?”
Design the project around those.
In the meantime, let’s have a proper discussion about what we mean when we say “industry-led” collaboration. It’s an important question, and therefore a good start on an enduring Australian problem.
This article first appeared at create. You can view the original article
here.
