SUPORT 2.0 Challenges (M) HEI - EN

Knowledge and Technology
Transfer
- Challenges in Cooperating -

How to get there?

• Understanding an Entrepreneur
• Understanding the needs of the market
• Clarify Research
• Simplify Bureaucracy
• Understand what an entrepreneur offers you
• IPR

Challenges of Collaboration with SME

 HEI – SME interaction in applied research is an essential tool in
the context of knowledge transfer

Possible obstacles:
• Structural differences

• Different goals

• Different ways to get there

• Systematical differences


 Social implications for troubleshooting:

• Trust

• Professionalism

• Awareness

• Commitment

-SME Structure – Understanding an SME-

To work together with SME it is important to get a sense of their
decision processes

Matrix Organisation Hierarchy
Management
Management
Sales Buying Center Logistics

Private
Customers Sales Buying Center Logistics

Business
Clients

Intern


Most SMEs have very limited capital, human or financial. They
are very time-constrained
• Time is money

• Understaffed SME‟s.

• Management unable to delegate.

• Competitive pressure.


Being your own boss is a dream of every company owner.
Unfortunately it is to remain that way– merely a dream

… Competitors

(local)
Customers
Government

Banks and
other Media &
finance Community
sources

NGOs


Pragmatism might be the word – and the key!
What to expect from an SME:

• The key driver-financial benefit

• Reasonable timeframes

• Owner/manager holds multiple
responsibilities

• Intimidated by legalese

• Impatient


SME‟s are a very interesting partner for your research

• SME owner/managers are pragmatic

• “Real world” players

• They are used to disappointment

• Firm, but fair

• They value honesty


• SME owner/managers are intuitive

• SME owner/managers can make decisions quickly

• SMEs are very agile

• Usually prepared to embrace new ideas

- Summary – Understanding an SME-

• Many SMEs have very limited capital, human or
financial.
• Time is literally money – 6 months is forever

-Summary – Understanding an SME-

• Outside pressures can shipwreck an SME e.g. bank,
Increasingly return has to be within a timeframe that
an SME can justify to banks and investors


Multi-tasking!
(Finance Director, marketeer,
researcher....)


• Operate in an extremely competitive environment
• Often obsessed about protecting IPR


• Usually strong connection to particular region – may
be culturally constrained


• Entrepreneurs can be intimidated by legalese


• Entrepreneurs hate bureaucracy!


• Entrepreneurs are impatient (so make boundaries
clear from the outset)

-Understanding the needs of the market-

Customer needs are a part of innovation. This is called market
orientation – or if you are an SME: Surviving.

• The Market

• The Customers

• Innovation

-Understanding the needs of the Market-

Trust and communication

• HEIs don„t understand the Current Market

• Trust the SME

• SMEs have to Communicate

• SMEs must Convey

-Understanding the needs of the Market-

• Narrow thinking in businesses

• SME focuses on what makes them excited

• As an SME grows in size, the more difficult it becomes to be
innovative

• The collaboration of a HEI and SME better satisfies the market!

http://academicearth.org/lectures/innovate-in-technology-and-business-founding-
google

-Clarifying Research-

Changing research practices.

• Distinction

• Increasing tension

• Emphasis on research teams and
alliances

• Growth of research
commercialization

-Simplifying HEI Bureaucracy-

There is a subtext in current technology transfer policies and the
media

• Universities not well informed

• Not sufficiently focused

• Pre-disposition towards US solution/
methods


• Taking a proactive, outreaching role

• HEIs can be very intimidating for SME‟s

• R & D should be established.

• R & D involved in collaboration.

• Establish a visible “entry point”

• Guide SMEs


• Given that research practices are
changing and the pressures to deliver
significant outputs are intensifying,
“[t]he key question is how to structure
and organise teaching and research in
the universities” (Gibbons et al, 1994).


• Build strategic alliances and enable synergies

• Help with public funding

• Integrate entrepreneurial culture

• Shape what should be done

• Optimal use of scarce resources

• Align institutional competencies


• Map priorities and competences

• Identify goals and objectives

• Implementation plan

• Appropriate structures

• Encourage faculty


• Widen definition of research.

• Determine the teaching and research

• Distinguishing

• Linking research/ commercialization

-Simplify HEI Bureaucracy-

• Greater research time

• Targeted grants

• Promotional opportunities

• Enhanced facilities

• Internships with industry or other
partners

• Salary increases

• Sabbatical leave

- What an entrepreneur offers you -

• Prepared to embrace new ideas (but only if the benefits are obvious)


• Intuition for what has commercial potential and what hasn’t


• Pragmatism:
• Can handle disappointment
• Can make decisions quickly

- Intellectural Property (IP) -

• What is Intellectual Property?

• What rights do I have concerning IP?

• And what is an IP Agreement?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvWEvkom-8s&feature=related


An essential aspect of collaboration with a SME is working
together with them in protecting your innovations.

• Be knowledegable

• Establishing a commercialised
relationship

• The process


• Substantial confidentiality agreements

• Seem to exclusively focus on protecting the HEI

• SMEs can‟t always afford to appoint solicitor specialists


• Entrepreneurs:
– Are often reluctant to open up and share ideas (Crown
Jewels)
– Need to be reassured that they will benefit - building a
trusting relationship is essential


• Entrepreneurs are:
– Easily spooked
– Turned off by weighty confidentiality agreements
– Suspicious that agreements will favour the HEI to their
detriment
– often unwilling to appoint specialists to check agreements

Summary of Presentation

HEI benefits: Posed challenges:

-Extra income -Structural differences

-Seed money -Different goals

-Different ways to get there
-Better teaching
-Systematical differences
-Satisfaction of work

End Results

Everybody‟s happy…

•Highly qualified personnel

•Wonderful innovation systems

End Results

• Commercialization of Research

• Publication Opportunities

• Legitimacy

• Image

• Public Funding

The type of collaboration and results we are striving for!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leh74zliLyw

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