On 27 July 2007 a workshop organised by Alan Hughes was held at Robinson College as part of the Commercialisation Programme of the Cambridge Integrated Knowledge Centre (CIKC) for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies for Photonics and Electronics. Discussion at the workshop centred around keynote presentations from both an industry and a university perspective. The intention of this workshop was to address the key challenges in defining and designing appropriate metrics for research council and other publicly funded initiatives in the university industry knowledge exchange and commercialisation areas.

Key issues to be considered included:

i. the development of an appropriate and parsimonious range of indicators to assess the impact and value of the knowledge exchange and commercialisation process;
ii. the most appropriate response in evaluation exercises to the problem of extreme skewness of successful outcomes in high-technology knowledge exchange and commercialisation processes;
iii. the most appropriate approach to measuring impact and success when outcomes may take many years to work through the process from scientific or technological breakthrough to effective commercialisation;
iv. the need to address variations in the objectives and expectations of the various parties to effective knowledge exchange and commercialisation activities (including university-based researchers, sponsoring policy bodies and industrial and commercial partners in the commercialisation process).

Background

The CIKC has recently been set up with funding from the EPSRC to develop advanced manufacturing technologies based on new macromolecular materials systems, for example polymer electronics or advanced liquid crystals, and to create valid commercial exploitation models for these innovations.

Combining world-class research with a strong partnership with business, CIKC will engage with industrial partners to shape and prioritise the work programme, allow the secondment of researchers from industry and from other universities for knowledge exchange, and will enable the provision of pilot manufacturing lines for prototyping. The Mission of the CIKC is to provide the business and technical expertise and infrastructure to enable those with exploitable concepts to achieve commercial success.

CIKC brings together research activities in molecular and macromolecular materials in the Electrical Engineering Division (in particular, the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics) and in the Cavendish Laboratory. It also draws on the expertise of the Judge Business School, the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) and the Centre for Business Research (CBR) to; create innovative knowledge exchange activities spanning business research, training and specific exploitation; develop appropriate evaluation metrics for measuring impact and success in such activities; and draw lessons for future policy in this area.

Speakers:

Alan Hughes
Margaret Thatcher Professor of Enterprise Studies, Judge Business School and Director, Centre for Business Research (CBR), and CIKC, University of Cambridge
Introduction: EPSRC CIKC in Advanced Manufacturing Technologies for Photonics and Electronics
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Further talks will be posted here as and when they become available.