Insight series: How to navigate between industry and academia
Academics are routinely encouraged to be more outward facing, collaborate with industry and undertake collaboration to support the impact of their research.
In this Insight Series session, we heard from Professor Gustav Markkula and Dr Mark Sumner about their experiences around moving between industry and academia, and how this can bring deeper understanding and valuable insights and collaborations.
Here are some of the key insights from their session:
Identifying what industry needs
Gustav: “How do you figure out what the industry needs? To some extent, you can read about it in newspapers, trade press and so on, but an even better approach is to talk directly to industry contacts. Talking to colleagues in industry, you can get a more complete perspective on the sort of applied reality that they are facing.
“At the same time, you shouldn’t undervalue your own perspective as a researcher. Sometimes you may have ideas about things that your industry contacts didn’t know that they needed.”
Bringing industry contacts into your network
Gustav: “Networking doesn’t have to be for its own sake. I found that I’m quite good at making new connections and growing my network if I’m a little bit instrumental about it, when I have something specific in mind; an idea about a possible need that industry has, or some way that I can contribute from a research perspective.
“I find it much easier to seek out people who I think might be interested and striking up conversations or exchanges with them. In those kinds of interactions, you can start from the needs of industry, rather than trying to push your own agenda, at least to begin with. I would encourage you to be curious about the applied reality; it is often very interesting to hear about.
“It’s not always easy to know where to find industry collaborators. We can find them at conferences and similar events bringing academia and industry together, and those are good places to go. But also, don’t underestimate the value of a cold email or a cold LinkedIn message. It might not always work, but if it’s done well, and is to the point, it can work.”
Finding the ‘perfect’ collaborator
Gustav: “Sometimes if you are lucky, you come across ‘the perfect industry collaborator’. In my experience, to make academia-industry collaboration work really well, you need to find that rare industry collaborator who has a research mind-set, who has that slightly higher gaze of looking further ahead, who’s excited about research. When you find those people, that’s when magic can start happening.”
Understanding the values of both sides of a partnership
Gustav: “In industry, timescales are shorter, there are more short-term goals to meet. Sometimes it might be more difficult to see longer term, and they might not know all the possibilities.
“This is a place where academics can come in and shine, by having new perspectives, proposing things that the industry didn’t even know were possible. Having a longer-term research perspective; I think it’s a very important complement to the often more short-sighted perspective that might force people in industry to not think as far ahead.”
Mark: “We also need to be responsive. When thinking about designing these projects, we need to be thinking about co-design. Often what we need to be doing with industry is making sure we can bring in industry into that designing process.”
Understanding the perspective of collaborators
Mark: “Critical to collaborations is having a really good depth of understanding of what that other side is all about.
“One of my colleagues a few years ago, talking about engaging with a very large organisation, a very large industry player said “well, they are a £10 billion industry and have loads of cash, so we’ll just ask them for whatever we want”.
“The reality of what that actually looks like, in terms of the industry side, is that industry is always tight for cash, always has budget and requirements, may have a very large turnover. And with retail in particular, that equates to a relatively small profit margin. And it’s only from that profit can they draw down to engage in projects.”
Be clear about your objectives
Mark: “In industry, being clear about projects is really important. This is not to say that this is one sided. Academics often have a very clear idea about their objectives. But sometimes when academics are talking to industry they don’t have a clear idea about what they’re wanting to do, particularly when they’re working at the edge of their innovation envelope.
“It’s important we’re being really clear about specification and what that project is all about — what the objectives and outcomes are.
“It is very easy for most of us to say that we’ve got really important projects, really interesting ideas, and what we want to do with that research, but we have to do a sales job, a marketing job, to convince and align that with any industry partners we’re talking to.”
Being prepared for challenges
Gustav: “When you’re working with industry, priorities can change. Something which the company considers an important long-term goal one year might not be an important long-term goal the next year. It’s good to be aware of that challenge.
“Another challenge is around material property rights and contracts. Some companies are used to working with academia, and are used to how universities want to keep a lot of the IP within the institution, but still with some win for the industry partner.
“But if the company is more sensitive about IP, these things can become more complicated. I’ve had the experience of something that seemed very promising not working out because the university and the industry partner just couldn’t find a common harmonised view on IP.”
Mark: “Industry often has a very rapid turnaround, particularly in some aspects of retail, and there are immediate issues that need to be addressed right now. That can be quite challenging for academic Institutes, and when we’re trying to develop contracts and agreements, it needs to be a two-way discussion.
The other challenge is understanding resources around time availability and staffing, but also around money, and the availability of money, and how it can be used. Getting all of these things clearly laid out to each party is really important.”
Moving between academia and industry can (and should) go both ways
Gustav: “I’ve seen lots of good examples of people coming from academia and successfully thriving in industry. But I want to emphasise that I don’t think you should see the idea of going to industry as a one-way thing.
“You can definitely come back, especially if you can find a place in industry where you can work on a more research-oriented topic, where you’re able to publish a little bit, or be involved in getting research funding. We should do more of this kind of cycling back and forth.”
Professor Gustav Markkula spent 10 years working in the automotive industry as a systems engineer, project manager and technical specialist. He moved to University of Leeds in 2015 to expand upon research from his PhD, into the mathematical modelling of driver behaviour, undertaken while at Volvo. His research looks at interactions between pedestrians, drivers and vehicles guided by a focus on human perception and action in the world and making road traffic safer. He continues to collaborate with and advise several companies
Dr Mark Sumner spent 15 years working in the clothing and fashion retail sector, before moving to the University of Leeds to focus on sustainability in the textile, clothing and fashion industries. His focus remains broad bringing together issues such as textile technology, innovation and consumer behaviour. He draws upon this experience to run the School of Design new Sustainable Fashion undergraduate programme. He continues to be involved with a range of industry, government and national forums as well as providing tailored consultancy.
