On Research Collaborations

Between Industry and Academia –

Water meets Fire or Win/Win?

Jesper Jensen

Oticon / Aalborg University

InfinIT - SummIT 2013

Outline of talk

Background

Research collaboration with academia: Why

should industry be interested?

Research collaboration with industry: Why should

university be interested?

Some observations on (successful) industry

integration of university research.

Background

Aalborg University (2000): Phd degree, Electrical Engineering / acoustic

signal processing.

TU Delft, NL (2000-2007):

- Postdoc and assistant professor.

- Several research projects with industrial partners, notably

Royal Philips Electronics, NL.

Oticon (2007-2012):

- Senior researcher at Oticon: scouting and development of

future audiological /signal processing concepts.

- Several research projects with academic partners, notably

TU Delft, NL, and Aalborg University, DK.

Oticon/AAU (2012 - )

- Professor at Section for Multimedia Information and Signal

Processing, Aalborg University.

- Still at Oticon.

Research collaborations between

Industry and Academia – Disclaimer.

I am mainly concerned with research collaboration between

academia and industry in terms of a few (industrial-) phds and

postdocs…. But I believe my observations are valid for larger

research efforts as well.

My experience is limited to research collaborations involving

medium-sized (e.g. Oticon), and large (e.g. Philips) industrial

partners… However, I do believe that many of my observations

apply to small industry partners as well.

Research collaboration with academia:

Why should industry be interested?

Scouting of future technologies.

Easier/better access to newest knowledge.

Visibility -> Recruitment.

More and better suited candidates.

Credibility.

Inspiration, post - education of employees via knowledge flow.

Access to expertise: Industry engineers can typically not spend

10.000 hours on a topic, university researchers might.

…

Research collaboration with industry: Why

should university be interested?

Even more industry relevant education.

Improved recruitment of students.

Cooperation possibilities.

Networking.

Funding.

Get knowledge of particular technical applications (e.g. hearing

instruments). Necessary for successful (applied) research

activities. Useful for fundamental research activities.

…

University/Industry Research Projects

Industry interests

Commercial

exploitation.

Patentability.

Practical

applicability.

Performance.

Predictibility.

(What, when, how

much?)

University researchers

interests

Novelty.

Fundamental solutions.

Publication.

Personal interest /

competences.

Long term research

strategy

University/Industry Research Projects

Industry interests

Commercial

exploitation.

Patentability.

Practical

applicability.

Performance.

Predictibility.

(What, when, how

much?)

Claim: Room for both applied and fundamental research of

value for both parties…. provided that

industry makes necessary time and ressource investment.

university uses industry application as vehicle for research.

University researchers

interests

Novelty.

Fundamental solutions.

Publication.

Personal interest /

competences.

Long term research

strategy

University/Industry Research Projects

Successful industry integration of university

research.

Industry

Involvement

- Initial and otherwise sporadic meetings.

Industry role: passive. ”Wait for thesis to hit your

desk”.

- Regular meetings. Industry role: reactive,

observer.

- Frequent meetings. Parallel project in company.

Industry role: proactive, participator.

University/Industry Research Projects

Successful industry integration of university

research.

Industry

Involvement

- Initial and otherwise sporadic meetings.

Industry role: passive. ”Wait for thesis to hit your

desk”.

- Regular meetings. Industry role: reactive,

observer.

- Frequent meetings. Parallel project in company.

Industry role: proactive, participator.

as we want them to be At Oticon

University/Industry Research Projects

- Frequent meetings. Parallel project in company.

Industry role: proactive, participator.

as we want them to be At Oticon

Frequent meetings with:

Industry supervisors (~10% FTE)

Pre-development / discovery in synergy with research project.

University/Industry Research Projects

as we want them to be At Oticon

Frequent meetings with:

Consequence:

Dissemination / consolidation of knowledge in company.

Knowledge does not only reside in the head of a single person.

Solidity: research project has many de facto supervisors.

Head start: generated knowledge is used already at early stage

of pre-development project (before competitors have the

opportunity to read/learn about this).

Post education of industrial participants.

Claim: High quality vs. effort (time) tradeoff.

Industry supervisors (~10% FTE)

Pre-development / discovery in synergy with research project.

Conclusions

Succesful university/industry collaboration involves

understanding each others working conditions and

competences, i.e., communication. Although this is not all that

difficult, this point is often overlooked.

Industry: accept that results will become public. IPR strategy!

Industry: research collaboration is a (long-term) investment like

any other…

Industry: there exists a minimum investment: Initiating the

research and leaning back = money lost.

University: Remember, happy customers tend to come back.