University-Industry collaborative drivers

In a globally applicable research context, collaborative initiatives in R&D appear to have been driven by numerous factors such as the demands for new technological development and the pressures of the competitive global market. It is said that the only constant is change and industrial players must learn to embrace this condition to sustain their market share by constantly developing or applying new R&D to reposition their product portfolios. Additionally, industrial players recognise their weaknesses in terms of expertise and skills to anticipate the need of their product pipelines to handle intense global competition. Due to these changes, industry needs to outsource a proportion of the R&D activities in order to focus on its core competencies commonly product development, manufacturing, marketing and distribution. To access the latest knowledge and technological experts, industry players may need to rely on collaborative partnership with universities as a channel for knowledge and technology transfer.

Collaboration were portrayed vividly as a symbol of partnership in both industry and university contextual environment as shown in Table 3.2. Alongside the technological and market challenges, universities are faced with a greater demand to

increase collaboration as an „access door‟ to improve and widen student‟s exposure

(Bacila and Gica, 2005). The drawback of such trend is the lack of university academicians which possess both the academic and industrial experience needed to appropriately train the younger generations of graduates (Matthew and Norgaard, 1984).

Table 3.2 Varying perspectives from university and industry on R&D collaboration

University’s view Industry’s view

 They are „non-profit‟ institutions existing

primarily to teach and educate students and undertake pure and fundamental research

 Research is an open activity where staffs are

valued by their publication record; research is motivated by promotion and tenure and requires maximum publicity. The motto is „publish or

perish‟

 Research is to look for and extend new

knowledge in an absolute way. Acquisition of knowledge itself is valuable

 For faculty & staff, research is a part-time

activity

 No emphasis on urgency, research workers are

more relaxed and scholarly

 Function as professional training, develop student‟s self-confidence, mental capabilities and

latent abilities to produce creative individual capable of independent thought and mature judgment.

 Sole objective is to make profit by

producing marketable products or useful service

 Research is a closed activity and new

developments require protection through

patents. Thus communication and

publication are restricted

 Knowledge is valuable only if it can be

exploited in products. Research is pointless unless investment in it can be justified by turning discoveries into products leading to wealth creation

 In an industrial research laboratory,

research is a full-time activity

 Industry‟s goals are short term

 University faculty lack of industrial

experience. Thus, mismatch between

industry‟s expectation and type of

education provided by the university

 University faculty tend to be patronising

Source: (Zaky and El-Faham, 1998)

Despite its drawback, collaboration is a resolution in extracting each party‟s core competencies and strength to form a stronger entity and balanced partnership. The numerous motivational factors are dependent upon which aspect and perspectives being considered (Keil, 2000, SBIR, n.d., Dyer et al., 2006). These objectives and driving factors have been compiled and classified from the perspective of university and industry as shown in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3Objectives and driving factors of the university and industry leading to the establishment of UIC

Citation University Industry

(Klawe, n.d.)  Technology transfer

 Enrichment of graduates with real-

world experiences

 Understand the applicability of

knowledge in the industry

 Changes in the industry research  Shift in skills for research students

N/A

(Casey, 2004)  Graduates receive workforce

training

 Technical opportunities exists  Availability of materials from

industry

 Research funding provided by

industry

 Access work demands from

graduates

 Attain novel to „high‟

technology areas

 Cost effective to outsource to

university

(Owen, 2003)  Knowledge and education

dissemination

 Competitiveness  Growth

 Products to market  Wealth creation

(Herman and Castiaux, 2007)

(Herman, 2007)

 Knowledge creation  Growth of human resources,

education and educational achievement

 Translation and technology transfer

N/A

(Severson, 2005)  Develop products/services that

benefit the public

 Generate income to support

further research & education in the university

(Butcher and Jeffery, 2007)

N/A  Access to wider range of ideas,

facilities & expertise (Parnami and

Bandyopadhyay, 2008)

 Encouragement of funding resources  Learning ability & opportunities

 Distribution of labour

 Utilisation of skills & expertise  Sharing resources

 Lower risks

Note: Compiled from (Parnami and Bandyopadhyay, 2008, Butcher and Jeffery, 2007, Owen, 2003, SBIR, n.d., Casey, 2004, Klawe, n.d., Severson, 2005)

It is important to examine all the factors in Table 3.3 if a full prospective of the motivations and expectations of the stakeholders are to be appreciated. The following text outlines a number of the key factors.

Technology transfer for competitive opportunities

Davenport et al. indicated that collaborative projects are formed primarily on the principle of „technology transfer‟ (Davenport et al., 1999). However, as shown in Table 3.3 the real motivational factors are more diverse and complex. From the industrial perspective, collaborations are largely driven by increasing international competition, accelerating the pace of technological changes, expanding technical barriers, the costs of retaining broad technological skills base and acceleration of the product development cycles driven by globalisation (SBIR, n.d., El-Hesnawi, 2003). Industry foresees UIC as a partnership towards attaining novelty in „high‟ and „new‟ technology areas and to access ideas, facilities and expertise (Butcher and Jeffery, 2007, Casey, 2004). Through collaboration, industry could strengthen their strategic position by leveraging on the core competencies of their partners, gain access to complementary skills set and resources; expand their innovation networks and lowering the cost of developing physical infrastructure. The formation of collaborations allows industry to access these benefits which in turn allows them to get new and technically demanding products to the market faster than they could on their own while simultaneously lowering research costs (Dyer et al., 2006, Barnes et al., 2000). It also gives the universities a direct mobility to get their invention or technologies into the market that would generate income to support further research (Severson, 2005).

Accessibility to technology and exposure

The driving factors leading research focused organisations (such as universities) to engage in collaboration are quite different from those of commercial organisations. Universities primarily look to enhance their prestige though the publication of results, access to industrially relevant needs/trends and projects (Klawe, n.d.). By accessing real technological issues it creates a new learning environment enriching and preparing students for the real-world (Parnami and Bandyopadhyay, 2008, Casey, 2004). With the changes in the industry, there is a need to shift research

students‟ skills to fit the needs of industry by encouraging strong links to produce

graduates with skills set more in tune with the needs of industry (Klawe, n.d.).

Commensurate the level of R&D project risk

According to an IPR expert, P.Kandiah, universities begin to realise the increasing need to work with industries because risk taking are more equitably shared in the project (Tan, 2010). In addition UIC helps to commensurate the level of risk by diverging and alleviating inherent project risk allowing partners to operate in a safer environment while they compete with rivals (Brouthers et al., 1995).

Commercialisation of application opportunities

Collaborative projects are also encouraged by more progressive governments as they create a „symbiotic relationship‟ which results in commercialising the research output (Casey, 2004). Developed nations have long recognised the importance of research capabilities which are seen as attractive inducements to multinational corporations to bring new manufacturing capacity to their shores. The activities of Singaporean government are perhaps the most successful example of intentionally building R&D capacity in strategic areas with this aim in mind. Although potential benefits from UIC research projects are widely acknowledged and embraced, there remains a wide range of issues which are not encountered in more conventional projects which will be covered in the following section.