In the UK - We need academia and industry to work together like never before

Preface

It has been a strange couple of days, and I don't want to get involved in the politics of what has just happened with the UK leaving the EU. So, before I start outlining my thoughts, let me get two things straight ... I'm a positive person ... and I am non-political. 

Introduction

As I said, I don't want to get involved in the arguments for or against a UK exit from the EU. I've read so much around the area, and one thing  I know is that it is going to be a time of great change for the UK, and where leaders need to step forward.

In the end, the vote was much less about economics and on the rights of our citizens, and much more about false promises and simplistic, and often incorrect, arguments around immigration. 

So, like it or not, it is going to happen, and we need strong leadership from the business and academic communities to guide us through with the minimum of disruption to the lives of our citizens and build a future for our future generations. To rely on politicians would be a disaster. 

Internationalisation, inclusiveness and innovation

My city - Edinburgh - had one of the largest majorities in favour of staying in, as, I think, it has a renewed focus on internationalisation and inclusiveness, and where it knows it needs to attract the smartest people from around the world in order to thrive. It has one of the most educated workforces around, and has few fears related to immigration, and openly embraces those from other nations to contribute to its development.

Without economic development, our societies will waste away, and not provide the best opportunities for our citizens. My own industry - higher education - can only exist if there is a need for its output, and without economic activity, graduates will go to other places in the world and who will warmly welcome them. 

This will be a time of disruption, and where businesses will need to search for new markets around the world, and where barriers that are currently there will disappear, and others will appear. The strong businesses will thus succeed through the disruption, and those who are unable to change will see their markets diminish. Those businesses who see no advantage in being based in the UK, and outside the EU, will leave, so we need to support those who build their businesses here, and do everything we can to give them an edge to compete on a world-stage.

SMEs and academia need to match their goals

I personally think that we have two years to shape new economic activity, and where the core of this is industry - especially SMEs - working more closely with academia. We should see the results of all the create research being done leading to some economic activity, and not just that the researchers gain credit for a highly cited paper which only has impact within their subject area. This is where we differentiate between research outputs and impact.

Most researchers go searching for the measurement of their output in terms of citations, and contributions, but when it comes down to it, research needs to have impact, and it is impact that is required through this time of disruption. What good is a new method that gets added to by some other researchers, and then is forgotten about? Surely those who pay for research should see the benefits in the end, and at no other time in the UK, will this be more important.

We need to see universities moving their research towards addressing problems which support new products and services. A university can wait around for licencing deals, if they want, but we just can't wait for this, and thus the route is often through spin-out companies. I strong believe that this should be the way forward for continued economic development, and create world-leading companies, who will take advantages of the disruption.

Impact through spin-out

So, what's the evidence? Well I've been analysing the impact statements from the highest ranking universities in REF 2014 for Computing Science, and if we take the top performing universities for the impact scores, we see some interesting results. One thing is apparent from most of the impact statements for the most successful universities is that economic impact is often a key part of most of the cases.

A typical split for the types of impact statements are for: spin-out/patent activity; ground-breaking technology/method used in transformation of a service; and a personal contribution by an individual. From what I observe, the first one - spin-out/patent activity is the most common one to be assessed highly, as you can put real figures on the impact.

For the University of Newcastle, we see that three of the five case studies were focused on patents and spin-out companies, with another focused on licencing. When we move to the University of Cambridge we see a strong focus on innovation and spin-out activity. Of the six impact statement, five involve spin-out companies, and which are measured in terms of economic activity, and built around strong patents. One impact statement is built around Prof Anderson, and his working in cryptography, but he's also involved in another which involves a spin-out in smart-cards (Cronto).

Really ... it's quite inspirational looking at the economic development from the University of Cambridge, and they must be a role-model for anyone looking for how you take research work and commercialise it. While the US universities have the best track record in this, UK universities need to learn new approaches in creating and support new businesses.

So ... our business and academic leaders need to step forward, and start to work more closer together, in order to develop new collaboration to take advantage of the opportunities that this disruption will cause. Economic activity needs to happen not within the centralised government activities, it should happen within the regions and nations of the UK.

Like it or not, over the next two years, collaborative infrastructures need to take a lead role in transforming our business ecosystem, and break down many of our existing barriers to innovation. For example, in Scotland, we have the innovation centers - such as The Data Labs and DHI (Digital Health and Care Institute)- and it will be these infrastructures that will be increasingly tasked in creating economic activity and support innovation, and fuse research ideas with real problems in industry. 

They need to have the ability to break down public sector barriers, and allow for new economic models to be build. For example, do many SMEs still find it difficult to integrate with the public sector in the UK? Where in public sector tenders is innovation ever seen as a core element of the work?

For organisations, too, which support the integration of academic and business, such as Interface Online in Scotland, need to push forward in enabling funding to support businesses to work closely with academics,

Conclusions

I've read so much over the past couple of days, and there's not much we can do about the decision that has been made around the UK exiting Europe, but our business and academic leaders need to start to build a new economy.

We thus need academia to focus on working with industry, and either support them to take their innovations forward, or to work with them to take existing research, and help them to it the market. I have never been so sure about anything, and I think more than ever that our organsations which bring together those involved innovation need to build a new infrastructure which breaks down existing barriers, and break-through in new ones. This might be focused on visionary project, but it almost certainly looking to develop collaborative partnerships from both the private and public sector.

I hope, in Scotland and with other areas/nations in the UK, that organisations such as Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International (SDI), along with the innovation centers and Interface Online, know how important their task will be over the next couple of years, and for them to push forward in creating new economic activity.

One thing I know ... Edinburgh was a place of enlightenment, and I hope will thrive into the future, and cities like Edinburgh and Cambridge should be a role model for others. They thrive on inclusiveness and innovation, and where new ideas are allowed to develop. Our cities should thus become our focus for our economic and social activity, and governments need to enable our societies to take more control of their own destinies.

Change is often not good, but it has happened, so I want my city to thrive in this new world, and I hope that other cities and regions succeed in the same way, but it will be business and academic leaders who are more likely to shape this than politicians.

I look forward to working with lots of people over the next couple of year, no matter their viewpoints and backgrounds, and to look at new ways of working together, and where we can have common goals.

Postscript

My opinions are my own and so they will stay that way. Business people, especially innovators and entrepreneurs, are robust people, and just get on with things, and they know where they want to get to. They will have to take a great role in shaping the future, else all the negatives things that are being said on-line will come true. 

Forget about the horrible immigration debate that formed much of the base of this referendum, and think more about providing a bright future for our future generations, in which we are inclusive and embrace different cultures and viewpoints, but where we have a shared goal of making things better for all. Our future economies will be built around ecosystems which attract and keep the smartest people, and industry and academia have a core role in enabling this.

As an academic, I believe in freedom of thought, and that academia could provide a fundamental element in making sure these next few years provides a foundation for the future. If anything, we need to open up our country to smart people and let our cities thrive. I love being an academic, and meeting students from all over the world, and a modern society should thrive on this. 

Cities like Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford and London show the way in how to build an inclusive environment, and we should look to them in providing a way forward. I am so proud of my city, and believe that it will continue to push forward with innovation over the next few years, no matter what the politicians decide to do. I hope our economic infrastructure - built around education, finance and life sciences - can stay in place, in order to allow innovation to thrive within the ecosystem.

From our point-of-view, as from Friday, we have redoubled our activities in innovation and in collaborating with industry (especially SMEs), so you can look forward to a whole lot of activity in the next couple of years.  If you're looking to collaborate with an academic team, get in contact with us, and help push things forward.