Lessons from Europe in fostering innovation
Imagine an environment where universities, businesses and incubators work together.
Tuesday, October 18 2011 || Comment || BY Mandy Burt, Marion Smith, Mark Young, Fan Zhang
On a tour through Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, we discovered centres of excellence and best practice models that are an inspiration as to what could be achieved in NZ.
New Zealand’s universities run MBA programmes independently, and internships between education and commerce are uncommon. Business advice and training courses abound in every town. For the entrepreneur starting up, or existing businesses, there is widely varying assistance. Each region has an economic development agency, but often they work in isolation from the universities and incubators.
So what if there was one, co-ordinated initiative which brought universities, business and incubators together for the betterment of New Zealand Inc?
We visited four European universities, all of whom are proactively engaging with business to provide relevant commercial research that drives innovation.
The core feature of each is the symbiotic relationship between universities and business creating win-win collaborative alliances to share resources and transfer knowledge from university and research institutions into the commercial environment.
The K.U. Leuven (University of Leuven) in Belgium has created a separate entity, the Leuven Research & Development, which is highly regarded for driving innovation and high technology entrepreneurship. Established in 1972, Leuven is a knowledge and technology transfer centre that stimulates the application and commercialisation of university research.
The university bridges the gap between academic education, scientific research and service to the community by ensuring the transfer of knowledge and technology for the benefit of society and industry. Through its networks with academia, researchers and industry, the university provides the key ingredients for an innovative business development climate.
Leuven University provides a bridge between the university, industry and society. It follows the triple Helix methodology of: knowledge creation – diffusion – exploitation.
In Rotterdam, The Creative Factory is a privately owned, not-for-profit, entrepreneurial incubator located in an abandoned grain store. Creative Factory is a component of the developing EU-wide network of "creative residences" helping entrepreneurs on a large scale. The ingeniously converted environment offers entrepreneurs a workspace and networking opportunities.
Because it isupported by the local university, lecturers and undergraduates are key strategic partners with the Creative Factory, offering students the opportunity to earn academic credits for providing assistance to the businesses. This mutual collaborative approach also provides a talent pool for entrepreneurs to tap into and assist with research and functional aspects of their businesses.
Also in the Netherlands, The Food Valley region is an alliance of international food companies, Wageningen University and research institutes who have partnered in a collaborative model to develop innovations in the agri-food sector. This model is proudly referred to by Wageningen University as the ‘Golden Triangle’.
The university plays a pivotal role in the alliance, forming a knowledge cluster that fosters innovation and builds awareness of each partner’s capabilities. Rather than competing independently, the goal is mutual value creation; where efficiencies and costs of research and development are shared between partners of the Golden Triangle.
In Germany, the Stuggart Automotive University proactively integrates students, government and automotive companies into a research hub to drive innovation and support the production of German - based automotive companies. Though this alliance, the university receives €$20m in government funding and €$40m from German automotive companies.
Due to commercial sensitivities, collaboration between automotive companies does not occur. Rather, the university provides high tech facilities, such as vehicle simulators and a wind tunnel, and automotive companies engage with students to perform independent research.
This collaborative engagement creates a win-win-win situation. The university is predominantly funded by automotive companies and can continually invest in innovation. The students gain research topics for their work, are sponsored with the necessary resources and many secure employment as a consequence. Due to government funding and sharing of facilities, the automotive companies acquire independent leading research at a lower cost.
These European examples illustrate models which could be emulated in New Zealand. There are lessons for universities, businesses, and incubators alike. Co-operation stimulates ideas that lead to innovation; increases awareness of new technology development; and encourages entrepreneurship and technology commercialisation.
The integration between universities, business and incubators creates shared value for all partners in the alliance.
Universities increase funding revenue from commercial alliances and increase their profile through relevance and application. Students gain value through ‘real life’ education and consequent career opportunities.
For businesses, universities present a large untapped resource pool of people, research and facilities that can be cost effectively integrated into their businesses. These alliances will drive innovation and increase competitive advantage of New Zealand businesses.
New Zealand business incubators can be enhanced through regional coordination and development of strategic alliances with Universities and businesses. The lesson from Creative Factory illustrates that a regional physical hub, uniting all partners of the alliance, improves connectedness, fosters entrepreneurship and creates business opportunities… all for the betterment of New Zealand Inc.
Mandy Burt, Marion Smith, Mark Young and Fan Zhang recently toured Europe as part of their Executive MBA course with Massey University.
Hi,
I totally agree with the sentiments above but how do we change the current situation when the various Universities, agencies and incubators etc are competing with each other for the business or funding?
NZ is small enough that we should be able to collaborate more and easily streamline engagement between interested parties but what is the first step?
Do we rely on the Government to drive this or do we hope for private business to try and tie these together in different sectors - e.g. health, high tech, I.T. etc in different silos.
I'd be interested to correspond with the writers regarding this topic.
Posted by Tim at 10:59 on October 19, 2011
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