Industry:Research Association:
University Collaboration
Dr Jeremy Hill, Fonterra Co-operative Ltd, NZ
The nature of R&D is changing rapidly the world over with companies increasingly adopting open innovation models to drive business growth. Open innovation is not about outsourcing R&D but combining complementary internal and external capabilities often through collaborations with universities and research associations. But to make collaborations between industry, research associations and universities successful what is needed?
Successful collaborations of any nature must always start with clarity over the problem the collaboration is looking to solve or the opportunity the collaboration is looking to exploit. It is also critical that the role of each partner in the collaboration is clear, including the specific benefits each partner will accrue from participation. Although this would be appear to be obvious, often this is not the case, or at least not for all partners. This is a particular issue when collaborations involve universities, research associations and the commercial sector. Here the partners can have quite different goals and very different cultures. Partners must want to collaborate, have a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities and from a commercial perspective project management should involve more management attention and not less attention than is devoted to in-house R&D projects.
Fonterra exploits and manages open innovation through a dedicated external relationships function. This function centrally coordinates Fonterra’s multitude of R&D collaborations to support its multinational businesses operations. The external relationships function also leads Fonterra’s innovation scouting and external technology sourcing activities. However, to be successful there must also be close liaison between external partners and the staff in Fonterra’s business units that will be responsible for commercialising externally sourced solutions.
