OCTOBER 1998 BROADSHEET - Frameworks for University / Industrial Collaboration
No one can say that the Cambridge Europe and Technology Club was slow in the uptake for the start of the new 1998/99 season. The first meeting on Thursday 17th September was a sell out with well over 60 in the audience, who witnessed a star performance by some of the movers and shakers in East Anglia and Europe. Our member Tony Bomber, who heads the Technology Transfer Office in Anglia Polytechnology University (APU) chaired us through a variety of perspectives on the subject of Frameworks for University / Industry Collaboration.
The first speaker was Professor Roger Needham FRS, who is the former head of Cambridge University Computer Laboratory, presently the Pro Vice-Chancellor for science and also Director of the Microsoft Research Laboratory in Cambridge. With his feet firmly planted in both camps he had many deeply perceptive insights about both sides. How is it that an organisation with practically no formal direction, such as Cambridge University, can achieve so much practical science and get it out to the public for general use. His answer - people. No amount of 'official' channels can replace personal friendships, especially when the parties involved are leaders in their field.
The way in which Cambridge handles the formalities of this interaction was described by Dr Richard Jennings, Head of the Wolfson Industrial Liaison Office. He cited the usefulness of having a neutral body with charitable status as a go between for companies. Universities were good at networking and they could bring ideas into the public domain safely by patenting. Echoing one of Professor Needham's points he emphasised that lecturers and researchers needed problems that were 'interesting', ie. that were capable of forwarding their research.
The industrial representative on the platform was Richard Herbert, MD of Herbert & Sons, Haverhill, manufacturers of the weigh/label machines you see in supermarkets. He operated a Teaching Company Scheme with APU to introduce Total Quality Management. The system developed was christened CRISPS. The fascinating aspect of this exercise was the discovery by the management that no one solution would do, and instead the company had to be divided into two parts, each with a different management and system. This was quite a blow to the Associate who was developing the system, and although it was his work that had led to this discovery, he had to withdraw completely until the company had sorted itself out. As it happened he never came back, but his initiatives lived on.
For our fourth speaker we were very lucky indeed to have the head of the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris, the top mechanical engineering school in France. With typical gallic charm and sans souci he abandoned his prepared notes, which he said were just a repeat of what had gone before, and in perfect english gave the reasons why his Ecole, which is 55% funded by the french ministry of industry, had to keep in close contact with companies. First 45% of their £40M income had to come from them. Next the Ecole had to know in depth for 5 to 10 years ahead what the companies would be wanting from his students and incorporate this in the curriculum. Thirdly, there is such a rapid change in the renewal of knowledge. In three years half the knowledge has become redundant, to be replaced by new. Universities also have the job of formalising this new knowledge for their courses.
The meeting rounded off with a lively question and answer session and Tony Bomber had the difficult task of closing the meeting in a reasonable time.
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