New Ways of Working at the Industrial-Academic Interface
Professor Paul Hatton, Professor of Biomaterials Science, Sheffield University

Numerous factors including the creation of new funding streams to support research have been working together to increase the volume of academic-industrial collaboration in recent years. This is particularly true in the bioengineering sector, where wider factors to consider include:

* The interdisciplinary nature of the field and the need for collaboration.
* Business interest in concepts such as "open innovation".
* Government emphasis on securing a greater socio-economic return for the tax payers investment in universities.
* Medical and bioengineering research offers the advantage that it is relatively "near market" (i.e. commonly directed at a clinical challenge), and the UK has a competitive health technologies manufacturing sector with its own significant R&D capacity.

In previous events, Paul Hatton presented a review of the challenges presented by the academic-industrial interface in this sector and, with the input of delegates, demonstrated ways of making this relationship work. This time the discussion group will take a more adventurous view of collaborative research and discuss opportunities to develop new ways of working together ranging from simple exchange of personnel through to more radical ideas such as the collaborative "hot house" where industrial and academic staff work alongside each other. The discussion group will consider a range of more unusual collaborative relationships and environments, and discuss the benefits and potential problems associated with each model.