TitleSubtitleDescriptionProcess Main StagesTouchpoints & BottlenecksBenchmarking and reference to other similar initiativesSuccess Factors / BarriersConclusionDosDont'sContact 1Contact 2
CARNET (Cooperative Automotive Research Network)Knowledge hub for mobility science and technology in Barcelona CARNET is a knowledge hub for automotive science and technology focused on urban mobility. It was initiated in 2015 by SEAT, Volkswagen Group Research and the UPC. Based in Barcelona, its ambition is to become a benchmark in this area, in close alliance with European counterparts. CARNET focuses on innovation and solutions that close the gap between academic research and industrial innovation in urban mobility, with the following strategic goals: Organising urban mobility activities in Barcelona. Contributing to strengthening the automotive sector in Spain, and Catalonia in particular. Recruiting proactively for the automotive industry. Networking to seek international research funding (e.g. in cooperation with international partners). CARNET bases its activity on three pillars: Cooperative Research: promoting a highly applied research and innovation in automotive technology through close cooperation between industrial and academic research institutes. The creation and execution of collaborative R&D projects/pilots seeks the transferring knowledge from CARNET partners to the market through e.g.: Small-scale demonstration pilots run in the city of Barcelona with private funding from the CARNET  partners. Large-scale European R&D projects with funding from EU funds, such as the H2020. Training & Education: structuring and adapting to the industrial and societal needs for the education and training of automotive engineers and scientists. Networking: participation in European / International networks and competitive calls. Creating a high-class automotive research environment in Catalonia. Website: http://www.carnetbarcelona.com/ Corporate video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=guC6UNbAOOs The process of creation of CARNET can be summarized as follows: STAGE 1: Long-term collaboration in the field of urban mobility, incl. the SEAT Chair SEAT and the UPC have a long track record of cooperation in the field of automotive research. In 2007 the SEAT Chair at the UPC was founded on the basis of this long-term collaboration between both organizations. The Chair focuses its activities on education, research and technology transfer in the field of excellence in innovation and sustainable mobility in the automotive sector. STAGE 2: Identification of the opportunity for the creation of CARNET It is forecast that up to 80% of the world’s population will live in cities in the coming decades. This change will challenge urban infrastructures, traffic systems and vehicles. Resources such as energy, space and time will be increasingly limited, while the need for efficient and individual mobility is likely to remain. The challenges these developments create for metropolitan areas and vehicle manufacturers are reflected in trends such as smart cities and connected driving. Building on previous cooperation between SEAT and the UPC, CARNET was conceptualized, with the aim to lead the transition towards this new reality in the city of Barcelona. STAGE 3: Formalization of the CARNET platform In 2015 the UPC, SEAT and Volkswagen Group Research decided to formalize the CARNET initiative. A Framework Agreement was elaborated, agreed upon and signed between the initiators. If was formalized as a platform / innovation hub, opening the possibility for new partners to join the initiative. STAGE 4: Kick-off and expansion of the initiative The initiative was formally launched on June 2016. As of today, it counts with 8 additional members, and has successfully executed a high number of R&D/demonstration pilots in the city of Barcelona in the following areas: Vehicle concepts; Mobility software and apps; Urban mobility concepts; and Business design for urban mobility. Similar initiatives in the field of urban mobility include transport/mobility clusters and associations. Nevertheless, CARNET activities go well beyond networking to cover also cooperative research and training & education actions.   To the best of our knowledge, CARNET is the only initiative in the field of urban mobility that provides the following features together: Truly multidisciplinary initiative, including industry partners (both multinational. organizations and SMEs) and academic partners (both from S&T and business side) Possibility to quickly set up real R&D/demonstration pilots to test and validate specific technologies in the city of Barcelona. Open to partners with all backgrounds in the field of urban mobility (fee-based). Strong involvement from local public authorities. SUCCESS FACTORS The creation of a successful knowledge hub such as CARNET requires building on an already existing and solid cooperation between partners, each of them bringing complementary capacities to the initiative. Mutual recognition and trust are key elements when embarking into a long-term initiative like this. A strong leadership from the industrial side is also required in order to shape a credible message and vision for the initiative. Top companies in the automotive and mobility arena support the CARNET initiative.  CARNET activities go well beyond networking, as opposed to most clusters and industrial associations. One of its main areas is cooperative research, where the strong network and knowledge base available within the participating organizations allows for the quick setup of very relevant pilots on the field. An additional field of activity is the identification of talent through, for example, the organization of several hackathons with UPC students. BARRIERS Finally, CARNET’S location is not arbitrary. The selection of Barcelona responds to the fact that it is widely recognized as one of the top smart cities worldwide, as it has implemented very competitive technological tools, such as streetlight sensors distributed all over the metropolitan area, which gather useful data about traffic patterns, parking areas and air pollution. The support from local authorities is considered a key element in the successful implementation of the initiative. The balanced combination of leading industrial partners with reputed academic partners can be considered as one of the key elements of CARNET’s success, together with the support from the local authorities. Based on CARNET’s experience, we have identified the following do’s and don’ts.  Carefully choose initiators in order to ensure the credibility of the initiative during its early stages. Establishing several areas of work ensures attracting interest from a wider group of partners; some are more interested in the networking, others in finding talent, while for others the cooperative research projects are the key element. A solid funding base from industrial partners is essential to speed up the process. It is key to involve a highly professional project office management in this type of platforms, as it a key element for the dynamization of the initiative. In the case of CARNET, this task performed by CIT UPC, the UPC’s Technology Center. Do not postpone the discussion on legal and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues; this should be covered from the very begging to avoid later exploitation problems. Knowledge hubs’ activities should go well beyond networking, as this is normally covered by already existing organizations, such as clusters and industrial associations. Daniel Serra, CARNET Project Manager, , , , daniel.serra@upc.edu, +34934137604, , , , , , ,
Co-location of a multinational company research team in a University CampusUsing co-location to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing between a multinational company with distributed R&D labs and a UniversityIn 2011, CA Technologies established a co-located office at UPC, a university specialized in architecture, engineering and technology. Since then, professors, researchers and students have worked jointly with CA research staff in several projects. This relationship continues, and this co-located team participates in many research and innovation activities with UPC, such as collaboration with students, organization of events, joint preparation EU project proposals, etc. The project followed a structured innovation approach in three stages and several substages. STAGE 1 - PREPARING In the approach stage, management of both the company (CA) and the University (UPC) started conversations to build the long-term collaboration. The University involved its Technology Center (CIT-UPC) to deal with the relationship on the administrative side. The success factor is the willingness to foster a long-term and strong relationship. STAGE 2 - NEGOTIATION In the negotiation stage, both CA and UPC involved their legal departments to agree on the terms and conditions of the Master Collaboration Agreement. The success factor in this phase is the negotiation of the intellectual property and exploitation rights from the beginning, setting clear expectations on both sides. STAGE 3 - IMPLEMENTATION In the implementation stage, which started after the Master Collaboration Agreement was signed, there were several substages, implemented for each single research project: In substage 3.1., the research director of the company co-located team approached CIT-UPC to indicate which research topics were more relevant for the company. In substage 3.2., CIT-UPC proposed a research team at UPC with expertise in those topics presented by CA. In substage 3.3, the research director of the company co-located team and the research lead of the specific UPC research team agreed on the research topics and the specific projects to be performed. In substage 3.4., the specific agreements for those projects were written and signed. In substage 3.5., research was performed. In substage 3.6., research results were communicated to CA management. The are some success factors in this stage and substages, such as: i) the ability of the co-located team to understand the company strategy as well as the expertise from the University when defining the areas to explore; ii) the ability of the Technology Center to find the proper experts inside the University; iii) the ability of the University research team leader to understand the needs and the tempos of the company; iv) the motivation of the research teams on both organizations to join efforts, knowledge and expertise; v) the strong background of the research teams on both organizations. As a result of the abovementioned project collaborations, other opportunities for collaboration between CA and UPC emerged, many focused in education and training activities addressed to students, but also collaborative projects (EU funded projects, industrial doctorates) and ideas on how to join efforts between Universities and companies to foster excellence in research and innovative ways for collaboration between industry and academia. TOUCHPOINT 1 - FACE2FACE MEETINGS Provided that this approach relies on proximity and lack of intermediaries in knowledge transfer, the main touchpoints in this relationship are face-2-face meetings (kick-off, milestones, regular meetings). TOUCHPOINT 2 - INFORMAL CALLS Other means of communication are informal calls between the company and the university professors, as well as informal meetings taking place at the University cafeteria or other common areas. TOUCHPOINT 3 - PITCHES At the end of the project, the project results are pitched to CA’s management team. Being the touchpoints face-2-face meetings, the success factors and the barriers are related to communication and personal soft skills. The success factors rely on the ability of team leaders (both from the University and the company) to effectively communicate the expectations of the collaboration and the specific project, the roles of the team members and to set an environment of trust and collaboration. The main barriers are also related to personal skills: Barrier 1: From the company: lack of understanding of the University way of performing research and tempos; Barrier 2: From the University: lack of understanding of the company strategy, tempos and priorities; Barrier 3: From both: not being able to effectively communicate the roles and the expectations to the team members, or to set an environment of collaboration. The main success factors of this experience are the motivation and engagement from research teams and building an environment of trust and long-term relationship, as well as setting clear expectations, objectives and ownership of results. From the company perspective, it is essential to make the process from research to market agile, and to build a strong relationship with the research communities and experts in relevant topics. Detecting and acquiring talent is also a strong reason for companies to co-locate their teams at the university. From the Technology Center of the University point of view, it is important to exploit the results of its research. As for the University, it is essential to impact the market and society and to expose its research staff and students to the business side of research. The main barriers are lack of understanding of the expectations and exploitation of the results from both organizations. Co-location of multinational company research teams in Universities has many advantages that other types of collaboration cannot offer, as it removes physical separation and intermediaries: being at the campus originates informal meetings that lead to new research opportunities, close physical collaboration allows to work through the potential differences (cultural, interests, understanding of the expectations) much more quickly, it creates stronger relationships and it has an appealing international dimension. Engage Legal Departments as soon as possible, as they need time to understand the relationship and agree on the legal aspects of the co-location experience. Involve a team at the University that has a business mindset, and a team at the company that understands how University research works, as well as the company strategy. Find research topics that are aligned both with the University’s research interests and the company commercial strategy. Work together to attract best students. Communicate and train the co-located teams so that they understand the policies related to the process, IP protection and expectations. Work on joint events (workshops, presentations) as well as joint research collaborations (project proposals, industrial doctorates, teaching classes). Base the relationship on a single person at the University and/or the company. Appoint a leader of the relationship at the company that does not understand how research is done at the University. Appoint a leader of the relationship at the University that does not understand how companies approach research. Be inflexible on intellectual property aspects. Dòrica Munell Canto, Sr Project Manager; Jordi Martin, Senior Industrial Liaison Officer, , , Spain, Dorica.Munell@ca.com, +34934927510, +34 93 405 46 90., , , , , , ,
Company Workshops/Seminars to University Students (Aula Empresa)Participation of ICT companies in workshops/seminars held at the Computer Science School of the UniversityDuring two weeks, the Computer Science School at UPC (http://www.fib.upc.edu/en/fib) hosts short workshops/seminars of 9 hours each, where professionals from ICT companies present different aspects of their companies. It is an optional activity for students, who decide which sessions they want to attend. CA Technologies (ca.com) is one of the companies participating in this activity every year, involving employees from different departments. The activity includes several stages: STAGE 1 - INITIATIALIZATION During the initialization stage,UPC publishes a call for participation and the potential dates for the seminar at the Aula Empresa website (http://seminarisempresa.fib.upc.edu/seminarisempresa/2017/). The goal is to attract and get contacted by ICT companies that are willing to give a free seminar to students. STAGE 2 - ORGANISATION In the organization stage, companies internally decide topics to present and find the right individuals to deliver the seminar to the students. Once a tentative agenda has been decided, the company sends the agenda and its availability (based on the previous potential dates set by UPC) to UPC. STAGE 3 - ENROLLMENT PROCESS Once all companies have provided their agenda and availability, UPC can officially start the Aula Empresa enrollment process. All accepted seminars are published on their website, so students may choose in which sessions they wish to enroll. Parallel to the enrollment process, companies prepare their seminar internally. STAGE 4 - WORKSHOP IMPARTED When the enrollment process has finished, the workshop is imparted at UPC’s facilities. Companies’ representatives use the allocated time to hold their seminar. Its format is chosen by each company, although it is expected to be a simple presentation. STAGE 5 - FEEDBACK  After the workshop ends, UPC asks students to provide feedback about the workshop and seminars. This information is later provided to companies so they can improve their seminars in consecutive runs of Aula Empresa. TOUCHPOINT 1 - DIGITAL MEANS Companies mainly interact with the University using digital means (e-mail): i) to send the proposal for the seminar; ii) to receive feedback. The University interacts with the students by digital means, through its website, during the following stages: i) publishing the call for participation; ii) enrollment process; iii) request for feedback. TOUCHPOINT 2 - FACE-2-FACE PRESENTATIONS Companies interact with the students in face-2-face presentations: they are mostly presentations, but sometimes companies do short workshops where students interact more. There are different success factors in the touchpoints: i) being communication mainly digital, planning in advance is essential, so that both companies and students can block their calendars for this activity and avoid schedule conflicts; ii) using the potential of the website and ensure that the message that Aula Empresa offers an added value to all the stakeholders is highlighted. In the case of face-2-face communication, involving highly motivated company representatives, with excellent communication skills, is essential, as well as adapting the format of the activity to what students prefer. Feedback from past students showed that they prefer working sessions rather than presentations, for example. The main barrier to digital communication is that, given the wide offer of optional activities at the University, Aula Empresa could be just another activity with no special interest: Aula Empresa needs to be properly disseminated, appealing and well prepared. Regarding face-2-face presentations, another barrier could be the lack of motivation from company or university representatives, thus resulting in boring and useless presentations or format of the activity, and reduced interest from students. SUCCESS FACTORS Being this an optional activity for students, its main success factor is the ability from both the University and the companies to present topics and activities that catch their attention. This is an essential requirement for all the players: i) the company wants to detect and attract talent, so its focus is to reach to students that are highly motivated with its areas of interest; ii) the School wants to increase employability of its students; iii) students wish to know potential employers and to grow their business experience. Therefore, a second success factor is the ability of presenting topics in a practical way, showing aspects of the day-to-day work and the company culture. BARRIERS The main barriers are other optional activities that may be more interesting and profitable for students. For the company, not catching the attention of talented students is a loss, whereas, for the School, not being able to attract enough students makes it difficult to launch future calls of this activity. As a conclusion, Aula Empresa has a tremendous potential for all stakeholders: detect talent, find a potential job, provide students with skills not related specifically to technical topics and necessary to work for a company.  The key point for a successful experience is the capacity of the University and companies to react, in an agile way, to the changes in technological trends of the market, in students’ interests and motivations, and adapt the format and the content of Aula Empresa and its presentations accordingly. Engage companies as soon as possible to avoid conflicts with other events or meetings. Publicize Aula Empresa among students as soon as possible and as widely as possible. Ensure that students understand the value of Aula Empresa. Align the agenda to new trends and students’ interests. Use student’s feedback to better shape future instances of Aula Empresa. Make an effort to improve each instance and adapt it to the needs of technology trends. Engage motivated company representatives. Use catchy names for your seminar. Reuse materials from previous sessions / talks: the format and the content of the session needs to be constantly updated and adapted to new students and new technology trends. Dòrica Munell, Sr. Project Manager, , , , dorica.munell@ca.com, +34934924091, , , , , , ,
High Tech Campus EindhovenA high-tech and research hotspot to host a wide variety of companies at a joint location. The Campus hosted different Philips laboratories and sales departments. By opening its doors to other companies, institutes, researchers, developers and entrepreneurs, HTCE has managed to achieve cooperation in the fields of Health, Energy and Smart Environments. HTCE is a high tech centre and R&D ecosystem, which was initially owned by Philips. It was founded in 1998, and it was opened to non-Philips companies in 2003. HTCE was sold to Chalet Group in 2012, and is now an independent organisation. It houses more than 125 companies and institutions, comprising over 10,000 R&D-staff and entrepreneurs of 50 nationalities. The facilities are shared among the companies, which take part in the initiative. This helps to create the right atmosphere in order to accelerate technological innovation by sharing their knowledge and expertise. The aim of the initiative was to create a high-tech and research hotspot to host a wide variety of companies at a joint location. The Campus hosted different Philips laboratories and sales departments. By opening its doors to other companies; institutes, researchers, developers and entrepreneurs; HTCE has managed to achieve cooperation in the fields of Health, Energy and Smart Environments. HTCE is made of technology-dedicated sub-ecosystems, co-located in separate spaces. The business benefits to kick-start high-tech innovation include: The people: tap into high-tech expertise: People from over 85 nations make up our community on High Tech Campus Eindhoven. The Campus has attracted over 10,000 highly-qualified people that are truly the best in their field. Another 50,000 high-tech professionals work in the surrounding region, called “Brain port”. The potential of the international campus network: The wide variety of social and professional networks help creating a community with a strong underlying tissue. The high-tech power network, key to the success of High Tech Campus Eindhoven, with more than 135 leading tech companies, large and small are located at the Campus. There are multinationals such as Philips, NXP and Intel, as well as research institutes such as Holst Centre and Solliance. The cluster of research centres is constantly growing. Open collaboration, having built on a unique ecosystem of established global brands, leading research institutes, fast growth enterprises, high-tech start-ups and service companies with a fully open set-up. Invention capital attracts access to finance: The reputation for success keeps growing because Campus companies are attracting foreign capital. Access to world class research & testing facilities: The Campus offers a broad range of advanced innovation services, expertise and high-tech facilities supporting concept creation, product development, prototyping and small series production, sustainability and industrial process consulting. Full support for high-tech start-ups: in our ecosystem they execute, validate, find the right funding and scale up at the right pace. There’s also a Startupbootcamp HighTechXL branch located on the Campus. Well connected through international transport facilities. The whole HTCE is based on the creation of innovation-driven contacts and networks. The overall setup facilitates the creation of scientific, technological and social networks of scientists and innovators. The High-Tech Campus Eindhoven is an open innovation oriented ecosystem starting with the attraction of innovative people, research groups and companies and building on the attracted talents to support the growth of an innovative environment and innovation environment which is self-sustaining. It shows how the initial co-location can develop into a tightly knit innovation cooperation network building on size, critical mass and high level scientific knowledge and capabilities. There are not necessarily support services provided by the operators of the infrastructure itself, but the HTCE attracts innovators and also support service providers. One of its strengths is to attract venture capitalists who are particularly capable of supporting fast growing start-ups. HTCE can be considered one of the best practices to build and sustain an open innovation ecosystem, which was initially closed and the opened up. It is very well suited to demonstrate how such a system can actually work. The key factors are: attraction placement: geographical but also scientific, industrial and technological knowledge and skill ecosystem communication technological facilities physical infrastructure Luca Remotti, , , , luca.remotti@jiip.eu, , , , , , , ,
Industrial Doctorate Program in CataloniaA special PhD program in which a PhD Candidate is hired by the industrial organization as a full-time employee with a significant and sufficient dedication to the execution of her PhD Thesis.A special program developed by the Catalan government, in which an industrial organization and a university agree to collaborate for the successful execution of a PhD. The organization agrees to co-locate a PhD Candidate as a full-time employee with a significant dedication to the execution of her PhD Thesis. A representative is assigned as supervisor, helping the student to transfer knowledge from the university. The university appoints a professor to be the advisor of the student, guiding her through the journey. STAGE 1: PROJECT DEFINITION A representative of an industrial organization located in Catalonia and a researcher from a Catalan University must agree on a topic to jointly develop in the context of an Industrial Doctorate Program. The Industrial partner typically provides an industrial challenge, whereas the academic partner ensures that there is a research gap that can be fulfilled by a PhD Candidate. A document explaining the challenge is jointly written and both parties start the process to request the Catalan government approval. STAGE 2: FORMAL AGREEMENT As part of the government approval, both partners must sign a formal agreement with at least some agreements on conflict resolution, Intellectual Property rights, and a declaration of understanding (including the velocity and progress in innovation processes). The legal and financial representatives of both parties may support in this process. STAGE 3: FINDING A CANDIDATE After the government approves the research proposal, it is published on the Industrial Doctorate website in which students around the world can check the latest offerings. The industrial supervisor and the academic advisor oversee the hiring process, and must periodically generate a report on the interviews until a candidate is found and hired by the industrial organization. STAGE 4: FIRST YEAR REVIEW After the PhD Candidate is found and hired, the student must register to the PhD program of the advisor’s university. The first major task that the student must complete during the first year is the research plan, a document compromising a formal description of the research challenge, propose a solution, a detailed state of the art, and a planning for the execution of her research activities. The academic advisor must guide the PhD Candidate on this process. STAGE 5: SECOND AND THIRD REVIEWS After the research plan is validated by the University, the student must continue with the execution of her PhD activities. The administrative staff from the university may ask for progress reports during the end of the second and third years, to detect deviations from the research plan and mitigate potential issues. STAGE 6: THESIS PREPARATION AND DEFENSE Even though the current academic regulation in Spain allows the continuation for two more years, the student has a maximum of six months after the third-year review to submit her PhD Thesis and defense it following the University procedures. This process may start prior to the third-year review if the academic advisor recommends it, or the research activities are conducted earlier than expected. Touch point 1: face2face meetings The main touch points of an industrial doctorate are the regular and periodical face-2-face meetings between the PhD Candidate, the Industrial Supervisor and the Academic Advisor. The objective of these meetings is to enable a space in which it is possible to keep track of the research activities, discuss about applicability to the organization, detect and remediate bottlenecks and blocking issues. Touch point 2: Co-located meetings Another important touch points are the regular meetings and seminars that the industrial organization and the university may hold during their normal activities. The student is co-located in both organizations at the same time and, hence, must be capable of learn and transfer knowledge from both sides. The main success factors of an industrial doctorate are the motivation of the PhD Candidate, her ability to deal with uncertainty and a trustful relationship between the candidate, supervisor and advisor. From the company side, the supervisor should keep the objectives of the PhD aligned with business’ goals. If necessary, the objectives of the research activity may change during the execution of the project. The advisor must ensure that such changes will not affect the correct evaluation of the PhD Thesis, which must follow academic standards. As for the barriers, there is a significant gap between the velocity of academic production and expectations from industry. Both university and organization must understand this gap, and understand a lack of response from the other stakeholder during critical moments (such as preparing a paper, or other business activities). Since the first industrial doctorate call, in 2014, CA Technologies has started three Industrial Doctorates with different professors of the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) – with one of them on the last stage of Thesis Defense, this is also an example of a successful inter-sectoral staff mobility. Informal feedback from these three PhD candidates and their network of other Industrial Doctorate students has been recollected on this case study. Project challenge must attract graduate students and, hence, must be aligned with societal needs. The industrial organization must align the initial goals of the research project to business goals for the next 2 to 3 years. Provide PhD Candidate with enough resources to execute her PhD Thesis. Understand that PhD Candidates may need time to spend time to learn new technologies and/or techniques. This might require additional training expenses. Align research goals to immediate research goals. Use PhD Candidates as another resource, they need to allocate most their time to the execution of the research project. Start the project until there is an informal understanding of each other’s goals and objectives. David Sánchez Charles, , , , David.Sanchez@ca.com, +34 934 92 40 91, , , , , , ,
PAE course – Applied Engineering ProjectA university course where students are introduced to innovation in business, Agile and LEAN principles through the development of an applied engineering project motivated by companies’ technical challengesPAE is an optional course of the Computer Science Bachelor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) with two main objectives: training students to build their own solutions to real industrial/societal challenges, and narrowing the gap between industry and students. Students improve their soft-skills, technological stack and business vision through the development of an innovative project in close collaboration with a co-located company. To foster entrepreneurship, companies act as consumers of the solution, providing regular feedback and helping them to shape their proposal with a business-oriented vision. STAGE 1 - TEAM FORMATION In the team formation stage, the companies independently decide which problem will be proposed to PAE’s students. During the first class of PAE, companies introduce their businesses and explained their industrial/societal challenges. Students then choose the project in which they would like to participate per their own motivations and interests. At the end of the second week, students and companies are already paired and then they can proceed with the project definition and execution. STAGE 2 - PROJECT IDEATION AND IMPLEMENTATION The project ideation and implementation stage comprise several regular face-2-face meetings between students and the company they chose in stage 1. During the first meetings, students and companies may reshape their projects to better-fit students and business goals, as well as set a preliminary, reasonable roadmap of implementation. Once the project is coined, team members are free to organize work among themselves. Besides, periodical meetings are scheduled so students would get constant feedback from the company and coaching on how to add business value to their proposals. Parallel to the students-company meetings, PAE’s teachers help the students to define their solution, roadmap and find the most optimal technical stack for its implementation. STAGE 3 - EVALUATION During the last week of PAE, an evaluation of all the projects is conducted. Students show their solution and business proposal to the rest of the classroom and companies’ representatives. Students are mainly assessed on this presentation, and not only based on the quality and maturity of the solution. Hence, PAE’s students are expected to show a clear alignment of the solution and the industrial problem, as well as provide a business vision. The results of PAE’s projects may be exploited and disseminated by both companies and students. TOUCHPOINT 1 - FACE2FACE MEETINGS DUE TO CO-LOCATION The main touch point of PAE are the regular face-2-face meetings between companies and the students. Every two weeks, students visit the company office and discuss about the status of the project. As mandated by Agile and LEAN principles, these meetings have also the purpose of evaluating the progress, providing feedback from customers, prioritizing the work to be done in the following two weeks, and reshaping the project’s scope or ambition if necessary. Thanks to the co-location of the company research team in the University, informal meetings may occur any time during the project execution, which reinforce communication and facilitate the removal of project’s roadblocks. Students feel more integrated in the business world and company culture. There are only two plenary meetings in which all stakeholders are present: the kickoff meeting and the closure of PAE. Nevertheless, interaction between industrial stakeholders is minimal. During the kickoff meeting, companies present their problems to the students, and they choose the project in which they want to participate. In the closure of PAE, the students present their projects and solutions, whereas companies act as spectators that might give feedback to any project. During PAE, teams may meet with PAE’s teacher to ask for technical assistance. During the first weeks of PAE these meetings are mandatory to provide an initial guidance, but it is expected that guidance is reduced as the project progresses.  The main success factors of PAE are the motivation of the students, a trustful relationship between students and company’s representatives, and a continuous coaching from PAE’s teachers and companies driven by the co-location of companies in the university. From the company side, it is important to align the outcomes of the students’ project with their business goals. In general, companies use this opportunity for validating early-stage ideas or assessing viability of the project. As for the barriers, students may feel overwhelmed with the definition of the project as companies propose problems not broadly discussed in the academia, but the continuous collaboration help in shaping the project to satisfy stakeholders’ goals. Besides, PAE is conducted in combination with other subjects of the Computer Science Bachelor and, hence, time is very limited and efforts are significantly impacted by student’s motivation. We have run PAE during the first quarter of the academic year 2016 – 2017, and the feedback provided by the students highlighted the lessons learnt thanks to the close collaboration with companies, especially in the case of CA Technolgies, co-located in UPC. In particular, students appreciated learning how to collaborate in a business environment and not only in new technological stack. Besides, all students commented that they felt they produced an outcome useful for the company. Unfortunately, one of the teams felt a bit alone as the people chosen by the company to interact with them did not have enough technological knowledge in the topic. Project must attract students’ attention and be aligned to business and societal needs. The project scope must be feasible for undergraduate students and doable during its limited time. Project scope should be broad enough to give students space for shaping the project to their own objectives and interests. Companies must choose representatives motivated by the subject and project scope, with interest in coaching students. Foster innovation and leadership among students by providing them with minimal technical guidance. Companies should commit to PAE and be reachable to students. Don’t leave students alone. Don’t make a very generic project proposal, as students may feel overwhelmed by the uncertainty and the broad spectrum of possibilities.  Don’t use students as an extra resource of the company. David Sanchez Charles, Research Engineer, , , Spain, david.sanchez@ca.com, +34 934 92 40 91, , , , , , ,
Taking responsibility for growth and job creation: co-location for co-creationIn 2011, Nokia Denmark presented a potential plan for shutting down R&D activities in Denmark with the potential loss of 1.100 jobs. Aalborg University, which was growing rapidly and had already strong collaboration with Nokia, decided to move into the Nokia buildings with the motivation of maintaining jobs and R&D activities in the ICT sector by creating an environment where researchers, students and companies lived next door to each other, which enable frequent planned and unplanned meetings between the entities. Main objectives of the initiative were to boost collaboration between the university and industry, by creating a shared space to provide both entities with fundamental facilities and services that improves the access to knowledge and facilitates co-creation, develop and sustain entrepreneurship and start-up activities, among other. After the co-location agreement, a steering committee was established that secured a close collaboration between the university’s innovation department and the Technical Services Unit, in charge of subleasing the buildings. One of the core issues of a set-up like this is to expose the partners to each other, i.e. getting the companies to get an understanding of the university’s specialties and mode of working as well as having the researchers to identify ways of collaborating with the companies and by that putting extra dimensions to research and lectures. This is done in many ways, but it is important to mention that even though the university is well-acknowledged within university-business collaboration, and many companies have experience in working together with HEIs, much of the work dealing with new ways of collaborate begins with relationship building. Thus many of the activities taking place consist of both bilateral meetings and collaboration (and therefore more “non-controllable”) as well as joint and shared activities such as workshops, seminars etc. The range of activities goes from one-to-one meeting among university and companies (and between companies) to more formalized events; One-to-one meetings between companies and the university’s researchers, the innovations department, students, other companies etc.; Pitch & Match; co-located companies presenting themselves for students in a dialogue based workshop to engage into student projects, master’s thesis, internships, student work (and possible later full recruiting); Companies presentations at lecturers presenting student projects; Company employees acting as guest teachers; Company employees attending relevant classes and courses (further education); Seminars exposing and presenting different aspects of AAU’s areas of expertise and research – this is also intended to break down silos internally at AAU and having different domains work together in new constellations; Presentations of labs, equipment etc.; Joint workshops and information meetings regarding EU and other funding possibilities with AAU’s Fundraising department; Ad hoc meeting to identify new radical ways of interaction to foster innovation (including external partners and industry); Joint research applications; (Industrial) PhD projects; Possibilities for participation at AAU’s Career Days for students; A major challenge has been to undertake a university – industry collaboration not seen before, and with a business model that is difficult to handle within the framework of a public university. As the university (of course) does not have rental as one of its core products, there has been some challenges as getting alignment of the main reasons for renting out square meters to companies among the Innovation department, the academic staff, the Technical Services unit and management, especially within the question of state-subsidized efforts within the scheme securing that the university wasn’t doing anything illegal or doubtful. On the collaboration side it has proved difficult to get a formalized and smooth collaboration running between companies, start-ups, students and researchers, even though the results and activities mentioned in the paragraphs above do prove that this is accomplished to a certain degree. The overall challenges is to create ownership for the joint efforts for the university as a whole to develop this co-location, because to this point is has been a minority of academic staff being involved in the collaboration, so there is a great need to expose the successes and good case stories internally to the researchers at the university to expand the possibilities for collaboration – also internally between the departments to enhance further cross-disciplinary activities. Taking responsibility for growth and job creation; co-location for co-creation. University Industry Innovation Network, 2014. Co-Locating Industry Personnel on University Campuses: A Guide for Navigating the Complexities of Co-Location». University Industry Partnership Demonstration, 2017 “Imperial and IBM collaborate in cognitive computing”. 10 Case Studies of High-Value, High-Return University-Industry Collaborations». University- Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP), 2014. Airbus and UC3M rocketing the Spanish Aeronautic industry. The Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering: Convetry University and Unipart Manufacturing Group». The full success of the initiative still needs to be fully realized as this is a rather young initiative, but a strong focus on the legal framework of industry-university collaboration needs to be maintained, as long with a continuous evaluation of whether such an initiative pays off to the university when measuring one of our bottom lines. Key factors here will be to look at the financial implications of such an initiative, but it will also be important to measure whether the presence of an interesting and attractive study environment will attract more students and staff, or i.e. research funding from co-located companies A strong focus on the legal framework of industry-university collaboration needs to be maintained and a continuous evaluation on research activities, financial sustainability and the attraction potential of the co-location initiative in terms of students, staff, research funding and co-located companies. Expose partners to each other to understand specialties and mode of working as well as to identify ways of collaborating with the companies by promoting a wide range of activities (spontaneous and formal). Ensure openness and commitment to identify and take advantage of the possibilities for collaboration. Connect the co-location leaders with the Government by offering a systematic setup for connecting industry and academia and support for job creation and skills development through lifelong learning opportunities. Define and monitor all kinds of collaboration activities to support a quantitative evaluation and continuous improvement. Pablo Romero Rodríguez, , Barcelona, España, p.romero@upc.edu, 683284644, , , , , , ,
UI LabsUI LABS was established to bring together top talent from universities + industry (the “UI” in our name), and civic organizations to pursue innovation and drive tech-based economic development in the Midwest USA. By creating a platform that promotes collaboration, UI LABS offers its partners an ideal environment to focus on developing, demonstrating, deploying, and commercializing innovations that address the world’s most pressing problems. UI LABS was created at the intersection of university, government, and industry, with an eye toward connecting world-class research institutions with the industry partners in Chicago. The city was already pursuing a strategic vision to build an ecosystem that could capitalize on its strengths—healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, and food and agriculture—and retain talent. The University of Illinois worked closely with leaders from the City of Chicago, State of Illinois, and World Business Chicago to shape the organization’s mission. In evaluating opportunities to drive innovation and economic development, UI LABS’ partners identified the potential to transform manufacturing in the United States—in particular, advanced manufacturing, an industry that World Business Chicago highlighted in its “Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs” as holding tremendous potential given the robust manufacturing base in the Chicago region. In March 2013, the U.S. government announced the formation of three new manufacturing institutes and solicited bids. UI LABS envisioned a Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) that would harness the power of technology and data to revolutionize manufacturing. In February 2014, UI LABS entered into a cooperative agreement with the Department of Defense for DMDII, setting in motion the process to bring the winning proposal from vision to reality. UI LABS began work in earnest to expand the organization and continue to put its operational structure in place. In the ensuing months, it convened the full board of directors, hired a staff of dozens, and broke ground on a permanent facility. This momentum also fueled the development of UI LABS’ second program, City Digital, which focused on applying technology to create smart and sustainable urban infrastructure. Discussions with industry leaders to crystallize the program’s scope and vision kicked off with an exploratory workshop in March. The initial partner meeting was held in August 2014 with a formal launch of City Digital in March 2015. City Tech Collaborative was born from a merger between City Digital and the Smart Chicago Collaborative in December 2017. City Tech transforms cities into testbeds for new ideas. With partners and people, City Tech remakes essential services and infrastructure, and then prepares those solutions for other cities. UI LABS is dedicated to using digital technology to transform industries, and manufacturing and infrastructure are just the start. UI LABS takes an active role across the project and partner lifecycle: Curate. Collect insights from our network on what projects have most potential for impact, resulting in informed problem statements – not a “solution looking for a problem.” Partner. By running workshops with the right players to clarify project scope, we broker partnerships and projects that can pilot solutions and test value propositions. Execute. Our project teams drive friction-free execution of pilots, accelerating outcomes tied to the value proposition – or “failing fast” and moving on when success seems unlikely. Deliver. We provide conditions and assets necessary for transition or adoption, delivering use cases and market transition readiness at the conclusion of projects. UILabs is a venue to demonstrate your product and services to existing and potential customers. Show customers your products and services in action in a hands-on factory environment UI LABS has over 1,000 visitors per month from more than 150 companies and government agencies Many visitors to UI LABS are executive-level decision makers There are various floor space options that can be tailored to fit your specific needs For the typical cost of a three-day trade show, you can display and demonstrate your product and services at UI LABS for a full year Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (Coventry University and Unipart Manufacturing Group)   Pablo Romero Rodríguez, , Barcelona, España, p.romero@upc.edu, 683284644, , , , , , ,