Is there anything left to be said on Industry-Academia cooperation?

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1 EUA FUNDING FORUM Contribution to the Funders Panel by Dr. Sabine Herlitschka Chief Technology Officer, Member of the Management Board Infineon Technologies Austria Industry-Academia Cooperations: Beyond Talking Time for Action! Or A Snapshot on what is needed to be done, and why does it seem to be so difficult? An example to start from Six months after having been appointed as Chief Technology Officer at Infineon Technologies Austria, I started to receive on a regular basis highly tailor-made technology offers from a university. These technology offers were astonishingly specific as regards Infineon s technology expertise and sent straight to my personal account. The process that ensues in these cases is straightforward: we analyse them, go into discussions, and as a result potentially enter in project-specific cooperations or licensing agreements. A very simple example of how easy it can be to start a discussion on industryacademia cooperation do you think it was an Austrian or another European university? Is there anything left to be said on Industry-Academia cooperation? The topic of cooperation between academia and industry has a long history. Countless book, papers, theories as well as practical examples from various organisations and regions have been developed and published over the past decades. EUA notably developed Guidelines on Responsible Partnering 1 that provide helpful information. More recently, the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academies published the report of an Expert Group on Research Universities and the future of America 2 including interesting recommendations. Is there anything left to be added? One could rightly say: no! Nevertheless, in this context I do want to look at nowadays practical facts, daily routines on the issue of industry-academia cooperation, from the point of view of the largest industry R&D investor in Austria and second largest European semiconductor company. This contribution is a snapshot view on the topic, and does not claim to cover the issue of industryacademia cooperation in a comprehensive way. Rather, it gives a personal flavour of the current situation, expectations and success factors. Where do we stand? Grand challenges at all levels Looking at what is generally perceived as most significant global trends makes one thing obvious: we do not suffer from a lack of grand challenges ; indeed, this seems to be a given of our times. There is an abundance of so-called grand challenges, typically major challenges of global dimension - the term even becomes inflationary as everyone seems to talk about grand challenges. Examples are well known: demographic development projections, limited energy resources and the need to develop 1

2 different approaches on sustainable uses of energy, the emergence of megacities and their implications, developments in the fields of health, etc. Probably the most substantial challenge is the increasing complexity at all levels, from a societal point of view. This is particularly the case in the field of science and technology, as demonstrated by the doubling rate of existing knowledge as a simple but illustrative indicator. Since the beginning of the 21 st century our knowledge has doubled in an interval of four years, while around the year 1800 it took a hundred years for such a duplication process. 3 The increasing amount and complexity of information and knowledge is both a challenge and an opportunity at the same time. Universities play an important role as their core business is the generation of information and knowledge and of knowledgeable people, in other words: research, education and dissemination. Universities have a great responsibility in educating people, uncovering new findings and transferring them into society. Within the European strategic context, universities contribute to Europe s vision of becoming an Innovation Union. As such they have a highly needed role to actively participate in bringing Europe closer to Innovation Leadership - regarded as the economic engine of the next century capable of creating a true knowledge economy. Thus, universities are one essential part, but what about the other parts? On innovation: highly complex dynamics and Interactions Innovation seems to be the key word, with a number of definitions developed over the past decades, from Schumpeter 4 to up-to-date modified versions. In a pragmatic way, innovation could be considered as turning knowledge into money. This is a fact particularly stressed in the European competitiveness policy discourse 5, as Europe is falling behind in generating value from scientific results. Innovation nowadays is however known to be much more than such a linear process consisting in turning knowledge into money. Innovation does not necessarily happen in a linear way from scientific research to development and eventually exploitation (linear Innovation Model 6 ). Innovation is more complex (non-linear Innovation Model 7, Open Innovation 8 ) with interactions typically involving science and companies; many groundbreaking innovations actually happened due to the close, often strategic cooperation of companies with science. Models like the Triple Innovation Helix 9, Quadruple 10 and even Quintiple 11 Innovation Helixes have been developed; Innovation and Knowledge Clusters have been set up. All these approaches demonstrate that close interactions between various actors along the knowledge value chain with universities and companies at the core play important roles towards successful innovation. Thus, in order to generate answers to grand challenges, to develop Europe into a knowledge-based economy, effective approaches responding to the challenges of complex innovation mechanisms are needed. Time for action: interest in real cooperation, pro-active attitude, excellence, professionalism With the above-summarised background in mind, one can raise the question as to why industryacademia cooperation is still perceived as challenging, at least in Europe. Culture is a typical answer, encompassing the various and differing working cultures both at universities and companies. Again, this is an answer that we have been given for a long time. With all due awareness that culture is difficult to change, I would prefer to go beyond and take the motto: time for action, despite of different cultures. 2

3 Just like with universities, there is broad variety of companies of different types, sectors and business models. Infineon Technologies has a number of cooperations with universities up and going; some basic facts, figures and principles as basis for these cooperations are described below. Infineon Technologies is a high-tech company operating in the field of a European key enabling technology, namely microelectronics. With over Employees and 4bn Euro revenue in 2010/11, Infineon Technologies is Europe s second largest semiconductor company, providing solutions for automotive, industry and chip card applications 12. New knowledge and innovation are the basis for our short and long-term competitiveness. How can we achieve sustainable innovation in a highly competitive field? The answer is as obvious as it is challenging: by fostering a healthy balance of inhouse research & development (R&D) and targeted cooperations with the best fitting partners. Universities are key players for us in this regard and become increasingly important for our activities in R&D and innovation. In practice what a company like Infineon expects from university partners can by summarised by four key ideas: interest in real cooperation, pro-active attitude, excellence and a high level of professionalism. Interest in real cooperation and pro-active attitude The starting point for a successful cooperation is the identification of common objectives and interests, based on real and appreciative interest in the cooperation. The other requirement is a pro-active approach. In most cases, Infineon reaches out to universities for specific project-related cooperations. What I would like to see more of in the future is that European universities pro-actively and systematically approach us with concrete proposals for cooperation. Universities should approach companies with offers in their fields of expertise open for cooperation. A simple screening of which companies on the market could fit their fields of research can serve as starting point. As a next step, universities should think about which specific and tailor-made offers for R&D cooperation could be made to individual companies. What could these companies need? What are possible demands? For both sides, starting collaborations in areas of joint interest is clearly a more successful approach than a traditional customer-supplier relationship between universities and companies. In my experience, this is a behaviour that is more commonly found among North-American universities, which have gained a clearer understanding of their market and act systematically in this respect. Thus they are able to play a more active role in developing knowledge and innovation leadership. My introductory example was indeed that of U.S. University. It seems that there is more work to be done on the cultural aspect of academia-industry cooperation. Culture is no instant coffee. Changing the way of pitching for cooperations, putting smart partnering in focus, rethinking interdisciplinary and financial sourcing is primarily a cultural subject rather than an organisational one. It means changing the routines and ways of doing and thinking. It s beyond the question of what should be done together, but rather a question of how things should be done together. Challenges are out there for both universities and industry. Universities are still too often perceived like ivory towers and companies too often seen as ruthless commercialisation machines. To sustain a competitive academic and industrial landscape, both have to develop partner-oriented mindsets. In this context, an important point is profit-sharing in accordance to the different core competences. Rethinking is needed as to how to share the success. A balanced apportionment of profits cash and intellectual property rights (IPR) - is the key for this and an important prerequisite. Certainly significant progress has been made in relation to IPR handling at European universities in the context of collaborative research. Another important element is the accurate definition of expectations and boundaries of cooperation. 3

4 Culture is about trust and trust is developed on a well-defined basis. It is first the work and then the comfort of being able to rely on someone s word and word-keeping. If done successfully it speeds up the implementation of joint activities and increases the probability of success for all parties involved. Excellence Leading companies like Infineon cannot rely on geographical proximity as basis for cooperation. Driven by technology leadership and excellence ourselves, we expect excellence from our university partners. The measurement of excellence is difficult though. If judging only by established university rankings as reference, the primary addresses would be American and British universities. The way we define excellence, however, is by the scientific and technological performance complemented by the flexibility and openness to cooperation with industry. Our university partners are chosen accordingly. The capability to work in an interdisciplinary mode is another important element. Real innovation is usually born at interfaces that are typically not working together. Therefore it is crucial to become the initialising and bridging hub for fields or sectors that are usually not connected to each other. To team up otherwise unconnected fields might result in substantial innovation. This is especially the case for combinations where common grounds are not directly perceivable. For a company like Infineon, cooperation with universities is not just highly interesting in the field of R&D. Obviously it is more than that, particularly with respect to education, for instance via the joint development of degree programmes, working on Bachelor, Master and Doctoral thesis, special programmes for talented and high potential students and much more. More generally speaking, it is about closing strategic workforce gaps for engineering, to mention electronics or nanotechnology as examples, and science fields like chemistry or physics as further ones. Well-educated people are the foundation of Europe s competitiveness and prosperity. Universities and industry have to support this prerequisite with the greatest effort. Professionalism: Expectations in terms of management Beside the scientific competence, universities need to develop stable, reliable processes and routines regarding their organisational and administrative part of cooperations. Just like in every cooperation, both partners have to be able to rely on the other side; this includes particularly content, processes of cooperation and exchange, management of expectations and interests, and timing. Smart partnering is another aspect of professionalism. The geographically nearest partners are not necessarily the right partners for a university. Who can offer the best strategic match to the organisation? Where can the highest synergies be expected? As obvious as they are, these two questions should guide the selection process. As far as selection of partners goes, one strategy for universities could be to choose leading companies. If universities work together with prestigious companies they can use their signaling effects to gain more attention from the market, which in turn helps attract notable partners that further improve the image of the university. Headquarter-Companies might be of great interest as they usually belong to the leading companies of a country. In Austria for example there are around 300 of them that are responsible for cross-national functions offering a variety of interesting research fields and opportunities 13. At the same time, it is a prerequisite for competitive Headquarters in Europe to work together with strong universities. In this sense these companies will be always open to joint research activities with academia in interesting and promising fields. 4

5 In conclusion Cooperation of academia and industry is about realising the potential for joint successes, gaining new knowledge, innovating and converting these innovations into the market, and as such contributing to a globally competitive Europe. In any case it is expected to be clearly more than just expanded income sources for universities. Industry-academia cooperation has to be built on interest in real cooperation and a pro-active attitude, excellence and professionalism, all driven by a time for action motto, despite different working cultures. Above all one aspect is of overarching importance: universities have a distinctive character, developed over decades and centuries, as places of free thinking. They should insist on their roots and values, while at the same time reinventing themselves as a powerful academia with cherished contributions to industry, society and global challenges. Sabine Herlitschka, Vice-President & CTO, Member of the IFAT Board, Infineon Technologies Austria AG, Austria Sabine Herlitschka is Member of the Management Board of Infineon Technologies Austria, in charge of technology and innovation. Her professional career includes industrial biotechnology research, international cooperation and financing in research technology and innovation, internships at leading organisations in the USA, Fulbright Scholar at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University/School of Advanced International Studies, as well as founding Vice-Rector for Research Management and International Cooperation at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, for which she received the Austrian Higher Education Management Award Before joining Infineon, Herlitschka was Director of the Division of European and International Programmes in the Austrian Research Promotion Agency with responsibility for the implementation of European & international Research and Technology Programmes, particularly the 7 th EU Framework Programme in Austria. She has been frequently involved in European research as advisor, project coordinator & proposal evaluator, as well as participant in various European & international expert groups. Herlitschka holds a Doctorate in Food- and Biotechnology with Postdoc specialisation in molecular biology and genetic engineering and a Master of Business Administration in General Management. 1 European University Association (2009): Handbook on Responsible Partnering. Guidelines for collaborative research and knowledge transfer between science and industry 2 National Research Council of the National Academies (2012): Research Universities and the future of America. Ten breakthrough actions vital to our nation s prosperity and security. 3 Interactive Media: 5

6 4 Schumpeter, J., [1939], Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of Capitalist Process. McGraw-Hill, New York Godin B (2006) The Linear Model of Innovation. The Historical Construction of an Analytical Framework. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31/ 6, Kline S, 1991, Models of Innovation and Their Policy Consequences. Appeared in Kingery, David (ed), Chesbrough, H.W. (2003). Open Innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Boston: Harvard Business School Press 9 Etzkowitz, H., Leydesdorff. L., The endless transition: a Triple Helix of university-industrygovernment relations, Introduction to a theme issue. Minerva 36, Carayannis EG, Campbell D (2009) Mode 3 and Quadruple Helix : Toward a 21 st century fractal innovation ecosystem. Int. J. Technol. Manage. 46, no. 3-4: Carayannis EG, Campbell D (2010) Triple helix, Quadruple helix and Quintuple helix and how do Knowledge, Innovation and the Environment relate To Each other? A Proposed Framework for a Trans-disciplinary analysis of Sustainable development and Social Ecology. Int. J.Social Ecology and Sustainable Development, 1(1), 41-69, January-March Infineon Technologies Austria AG, 13 International Leading Competence Units in Austria: 6