Volume 1

Innovation in manufacturing industry / Select Committee on Science and Technology.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
Date:
[1991], ©1991
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Innovation in manufacturing industry / Select Committee on Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/92 (page 13)
    frequently visited (typically twice per year) by trade delegations of up to 20 Japanese industrial scientists. The number of similar visits I get from research scientists in British industry is negligible” (P. 282).! 4.8 HEIs have made great efforts in recent years to improve their links with industry.? The various mechanisms used by universities to transfer technology to industry include science and technology parks, innovation centres, provision of specialist courses, the Teaching Company Scheme and industrial R&D clubs (P. 94, P. 260). The Fellowship of Engineering welcomed the widespread appointment by universities of Industrial Liaison Officers (p. 65). Imperial College, University of London, has set up a joint venture company with 3i (Q 644). Professor S K Bhattacharyya, of the Department of Engineering at the University of Warwick, has established technology centres in collaboration with particular industrial companies (Q 1504). The CBI said that the prospects for technology transfer between HEIs and industry were improving (p. 14). The NEDC report} concluded that such transfer “is increasing in intensity and in scope”. 49 In their various ways the Research Councils have undertaken similar initiatives. SERC for example has established its Directorate for the Application of Computers in Manufacturing Engineering (ACME) which has resulted in “industrial companies taking up the ideas to produce products ‘and processes that will improve their competitiveness”, and the Teaching Company Scheme is also assisting technology transfer (PP. 266-267). Both these schemes are run and funded jointly by SERC and DTI. The Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC) “adopts a flexible, case by case approach to exploitation” by means of “industrial contracts and by direct contact with the commercial world” (P. 4). Marketing managers are now being appointed by individual AFRC institutes to co-ordinate these contacts. The Medical Research Council (MRC) has had an Industrial Liaison Group since 1982 and a Collaborative Centre since 1986, and its policy is “to ensure that its intellectual property, inventions and know-how are exploited in the national interest” (P. 224). The Fellowship of Engineering said that “the establishment of AIRTO (Association of Independent Technical and Research Organisations) has been a useful additional step in strengthening the links between Research Councils and Industry” (p. 65). 4.10 Some witnesses however were not content with the present mechanisms for transfer of technology from the science base to industry. Defence Technology Enterprises Limited said that, while the situation is improving, it still suffers from “lack of commercial and legal expertise” on the part of the constituents of the science base and a “lack of overall co-ordination” (P. 101). The Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) saw the cultural differences between HEIs and industry as a problem (P. 268). The urgency of commercial deadlines, for example, is not always clearly understood by academics. 4.11 Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) can have particular difficulty in making use of the science base. “SMEs in general have very little appreciation of the nature of the work and the goals of HEIs, and similarly, university staff have little rapport with the methods employed by SMEs” (P. 14). The difficulty for SMEs in finding out what is available and who to turn to for advice was also remarked on (PP. 101, 120). Mr I K Showan, of the Britax Automotive Components Division of BSG International plc, clearly described the difficulties experienced by a medium-sized company in its dealings with HEIs (P. 57). 4.12 It might be feared that the new concentration on technology transfer will undermine the more traditional role of HEIs and Research Councils. ICI plc expressed this concern most clearly: “the present priority given to this activity [interaction with industry] stems more from a desperate need to raise funds than from any natural extension of academic interest . . . the primary job of academy is education and . . . earning money should be a secondary and minor activity. The present emphasis is wrong and if continued will diminish the capacity for education, scholarship and research which are for us the universities’ main contribution to the overall process of innovation” (P. 147). Glaxo also suggested that direct technology transfer was not their main expectation of their collaborations with HEIs and Research Councils, but that they valued more highly the exchange of ideas and the two-way transfer of information (P. 141). 4.13 Itisclear from the evidence that the most effective means of transferring knowledge from one sector to another is by personal contacts, including the transfer of people whether 'See also Q 385; PP. 39, 99, 225. For a survey of the mechanisms for technology transfer between HEIs and industry, see Technology Transfer Mechanisms, NEDC;, February 1989, p. 88 ff. 3Op cit, p. 4.