Collaboration Ties that bind
Matthew Wasley, knowledge transfer manager of photonics at Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network, says support is at hand for businesses wanting to collaborate
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facilities as larger companies? How can they find the expertise they need to bring innovative new products to market? Fortunately, help is at hand. Tere is support across Europe for
companies looking to collaborate. In the UK for example, there are a number of organisations playing different roles in supporting companies across the innovation landscape. So many in fact, that there is danger of confusion. A Government study, Te Dowling Review of Business-University Research Collaborations, published in July 2015, found that the public- funded support for collaboration was too complex, and recommended that the interface between business and academia be made as simple as possible, even if the underlying details were complex – a process referred to as ‘hiding the wiring’. My own organisation, Knowledge
Transfer Network (KTN), plays a key role in this process as part of the UK’s innovation support landscape. KTN runs collaboration events across the UK, connecting business to business and business to academia. We have a phrase within the company: ‘connecting the unusual suspects’. Tis means that we are interested not only in supporting collaboration across an industry vertical, but also collaborating across different sectors. For example, a laser manufacturer
A
recent report by the European organisation Photonics21 showed
that while the European photonics industry, on the whole, grew less than the world market, imaging and machine vision succeeded in keeping pace. Te ability of the industry to innovate has been key to this, but the pace of technological change is rapid and European industry must continue to innovate to stay ahead. Tere is plenty of evidence to show that Europe holds its own
on innovation. Eleven of the top 20 innovating economies in the Global Innovation Index came from Europe, including the top three (Switzerland, Netherlands and Sweden). In addition, the EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard, which tracks the 2,500 companies worldwide investing the largest sums in R&D, found that 567 EU companies accounted for 26 per cent of the total R&D expenditure. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the R&D
Scoreboard also found that these companies were actively engaged
22 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • Yearbook 2018/2019
in scientific publications in a wide range of fields, oſten in collaboration with academia. Te Scoreboard report noted that there is a positive correlation between a firm’s R&D expenditure and the number of publications it has contributed to, which also holds true for patents. Large companies, it seems, see
the value in collaboration to drive innovation. Academic collaboration is a part of this, as is collaboration with other business, notably around supply chains. But what about SMEs, how can they access the same
came to us with a method of imaging plant collagen, but had no connections into agriculture. We were able to connect them to a crop specialist and support them to set up an R&D collaboration. Te Enterprise Europe Network
is another important part of the innovation landscape, working across Europe and beyond. Te network offers support and advice to businesses across Europe and helps them make the most of the opportunities in the European Union. Te Enterprise Europe Network is made up of close to 600 partner organisations in more than 40 countries, promoting competitiveness and innovation at
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