Research Institutes Have Become Industry Partners

Industrial research institutes used to be government-financed organizations with mandates to advance industrial technology and improve economic competitiveness. Good R&D people were assembled and expected to contribute to the welfare of industry and society without having any clear link to business needs and strategy. Today, institutes have evolved into market-driven hybrids paid for value delivered to industry while still receiving a portion of their funding from public sources. They are strongly networked to enhance the probability of finding rapid and cost-effective solutions to technical problems brought to them by industry. The handling of technology transfer to industry and associated intellectual property rights has been facilitated by model contracts and master alliance agreements, and modern industrial institutes use web-based tools to speed identification of new technologies with high potential, to gauge potential value of those technologies to member companies, and to establish a project strategy that will lead to defensible IP.