Working with a university on product R&D?

[cvanc]

Anyone got experience doing this?

I'm working on a new product design that has aspects outside of my expertise.  I'd like to enlist a university to fill in the gaps.  Has anyone here "been there, done that" and would you be willing to share your experience?  I'd be grateful for any insight you can offer.

[EEVblog]

Anyone got experience doing this?

I'm working on a new product design that has aspects outside of my expertise.  I'd like to enlist a university to fill in the gaps.  Has anyone here "been there, done that" and would you be willing to share your experience?  I'd be grateful for any insight you can offer.

Is this research type aspects, or just practical engineering aspects outside of your expertise?
If it's the latter then I wouldn't be engaging a university for that, but a design house or design contractor instead.

[cvanc]

Is this research type aspects, or just practical engineering aspects outside of your expertise?

You know, I really can't tell you.  It's advanced stuff to me and certainly novel for the market I intend to be in.  But I don't know if it's everyday stuff for other industries.

So I'm not sure where the dividing line between research and engineering might be.  Does that make sense?

[profdc9]

Let me explain from my experience what a university can and can't do for R&D.

Universities have professors and facilities.  Professors have their own research agendas.  If you can find one with research goals that align with yours, great.  However, there is a possibility that they take your money and don't advance your product with the urgency you require.

Secondly, there is student and staff labor available to do the work.  Student labor must ultimately be justified by either a research publication or thesis.  Therefore, something that is not publishable research is not justifiable for student labor.  Secondly, student labor varies a lot in quality, from truly excellent, brilliant students to students barely scraping by enough to stay in academia.  You don't have a lot of quality control here.  As for staff labor, they are not restricted in whether or not they do research or commercial work.  But as a default, the IP of any work performed at a university is owned by the university.  You may be able to negotiate a license to the IP, perhaps an exclusive license.  You probably will have to pay for the prosecution of any patents even though you don't own the IP, though usually the more you contribute to the prosecution, the more favorable terms you can obtain for the use of the IP.   Some licensing and venture offices at universities are a pleasure to work with.  Some are mostly interested in covering their own backside and won't agree to anything reasonable.  So it depends.

Development type work, past the proof-of-principle stage, is rarely justified in the university environment.  So while you might get something that is shown to work well enough to get a research publication (which usually means just barely), getting past that point in the university is difficult to do.

This is not to knock the university and its goals, but university research is intended to produce publications and educate students and not necessarily produce products.  University professors start companies to create products.

If all you need is expertise, you may be better served by engaging a professor on a private basis as a consultant outside of his or her university activities.  Many universities allow this.  Make sure if you do this you know what projects the professor does at the university and that these projects are specifically excluded in a consulting contract so that the university can not lay claim to your work.

As for facilities, you can often gain access to university facilities for a fee.  For microfabrication or other specialized equipment, this can be a useful alternative to commercial facilities.  Universities are frequently looking to share the cost of their expensive-to-maintain facilities.  You may need to engage some staff at the university to operate the equipment.  I think purely operating equipment is not considered as generating IP.

[coppice]

I agree with profdc9. If you need to develop some technology - say how to sense something, how to measure something, or an algorithm - university assistance can work out really well. Just be very careful not to rely on them for anything we might classify as product development. You might be lucky, and find someone with the right skills and motivation to produce a polished product, but its really risky.

[profdc9]

Yes, I won't deny my Duke university employment.

I would not engage with a professor that would "exploit" students by having them do work that is not justified by a research goal.  Even beyond the ethical considerations, you are operating in a gray area here and might compromise your relationship with the university.  The best strategy might be to engage postdocs through consulting or through a startup company created for university spinoffs.  You can even potentially hire students as consultants as long as conflict-of-interest standards are met and the work is well separated from their university research so it can not be argued their advisor is pressuring them into the work.  But depending on having students doing work they are not supposed to be doing at the university is a taking your chances.

[coppice]

Yes, I won't deny my Duke university employment.

I would not engage with a professor that would "exploit" students by having them do work that is not justified by a research goal.  Even beyond the ethical considerations, you are operating in a gray area here and might compromise your relationship with the university.  The best strategy might be to engage postdocs through consulting or through a startup company created for university spinoffs.  You can even potentially hire students as consultants as long as conflict-of-interest standards are met and the work is well separated from their university research so it can not be argued their advisor is pressuring them into the work.  But depending on having students doing work they are not supposed to be doing at the university is a taking your chances.

Lots of students would love the opportunity to work on some real world projects while at university, and be able to add them to their CV. The question you should ask as a professor is whether there is a good match between the student's desires and abilities and the needs of the customer.

[Vovk_Z]

 I work in the university (Ukraine), and everything written above (reply #3 by profdc9) is 100% true for our universities, and it was interesting to hear that it is the same all over the world.

[nctnico]

I agree with profdc9. If you need to develop some technology - say how to sense something, how to measure something, or an algorithm - university assistance can work out really well. Just be very careful not to rely on them for anything we might classify as product development. You might be lucky, and find someone with the right skills and motivation to produce a polished product, but its really risky.

Not just that but universities are very keen on wanting a piece of the pie. For example patents which they then license to the company who came up with the idea in the first place.

I agree with Dave (EEVblog): hire a contractor. Preferably one with expertise in the field and work with fixed price quotations. As a contractor I usually divide projects which involve some more fundamental research into several phases: feasability, demonstrator prototype and product development.

[Wimberleytech]

Professors hire grad students for pennies on the dollar.
Grad students do research and write papers (with professor co author)
Professor uses paper trail to get funding to hire more grad students
Professor uses papers to get tenure and more money and fewer teaching hours.
Rinse and repeat.

The currency of academia is papers.

The university is happy to take your money with no strings attached.
The university is happy to hear about the hard problems you are trying to solve so they can go off and solve them and patent the solution along the way.
The university through various foundations assert their patents on public companies to extract a bounty.  Public funds supported the research that ends up suing them.

Another little factoid.  You give a professor or his department 50 grand and guess what?  The university at large gloms on to half of it.  The professor ends up with half.  Thanks for playing.

While what I have written is a bit negative...good does come from it (e.g., all of the IC work done at Berkeley during the late 70's on).  I don't recall Berkeley patenting their stuff--thank goodness.

So apart from this university stuff...what kind of help do you need.  Tell us.

[EEVblog]

This forum has a Jobs section which is great for finding someone with a specific expertise. If you can publically say the area of expertise involved without divulging the product or idea then you might be able to find someone here to help.

[Etesla]

My university sometimes accepts projects like those you are describing, I have worked on a couple of them. In my opinion, it really comes down to what actual human being is working on it. 80% of the time, I don't think its worth it financially for the outside entity (you). Students, at least at my university, just aren't taught enough practical knowledge to be useful or efficient until they take their own initiative to gather real world experience. If you're willing to accept this risk, go for it. Some kid will likely benefit from the experience your project provides, but if the bottom line is at all important, I'd skip and look for a professional. Just my 2c

[profdc9]

I agree that if the work is voluntary on the student's part, and the student would like to do it for their CV, then that is ok.  The problem is when a student is given work that is not in the educational interest of the student, and distinguishing when a student's involvement is voluntary or involuntary.  Remember that a graduate student may have up to seven years of time invested in the research of his or her advisor and is generally not in a position to refuse what an advisor asks them to do.  I have seen it go both ways, and so I am very cautious about this point and try to have a publishable result in mind for a student's work to put any questions to rest about the reasons for a student's involvement.  It would be easiest to engage a consultant outside the university if that's possible, or if necessary have a formal contract in place with the university that makes who performs the work clear and the ownership and licensing of any IP generated by the research.

[Wimberleytech]

So, the university takes in $100k, and spits out $6.7k+$5k+$23k=$34.7k, so there is a 65.3% overall overhead. Even if the university pays for the GSSP, there is still a 41.3% overhead.

Wow.  My data is from when I was an executive at a Semiconductor Corp.  I was the guy who doled out the money to the universities we sponsored.  Profs gave me this feedback.  Sad.  Universities are bloated bureaucracies...at least that is my view in the US.

Thanks for the additional insight.

[coppice]

Universities are bloated bureaucracies...at least that is my view in the US.

If you look at most public institutions, whether its a college, a hospital, or anything else, over the last half century the percentage of admin staff has massively increased, during a period when automation has eliminated the need for most admin staff.

[Wimberleytech]

Universities are bloated bureaucracies...at least that is my view in the US.

If you look at most public institutions, whether its a college, a hospital, or anything else, over the last half century the percentage of admin staff has massively increased, during a period when automation has eliminated the need for most admin staff.

This is a worldwide problem!  Public institutions, unmotivated by profit/loss considerations, never have layoffs--a cleansing event.