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On DN on October 15, NTNU Professor Magnus Langseth shares his thoughts on what he experiences as tensions and challenges in collaborating with Sintef around research and innovation in business and industry.
Question: “Is driving innovation based on internationally outstanding research compatible with Sintef’s business model, where the income requirement is crucial?” This is a juicy challenge, from the best academic tradition, to which I will respond.
Your question is of great national relevance, because with falling oil revenues and the need to finance the aging wave of the Norwegian economy, we are in dire need of restructuring. So it is crucial that the collaboration between Norway’s largest university and the country’s largest research institute works in a way that provides optimal innovation capacity in business and industry.
Alexandra Bech Gjørv (Photo: Javad Parsa)
And that is why it is important to have a debate on research and innovation policy.
Sintef, with 2,000 employees, is not a profit machine, but a “profit for profit” research foundation. We recoup all the benefits as investments in business renewal, in the form of the expertise, laboratories, scientific equipment and computing power that modern R&D needs. Since more than 90 percent of our NOK 3.5 billion turnover is exposed to competition, we are completely dependent on the business community perceiving our services as relevant.
We must also be so good that we win competitions for the announced funding from the Research Council and the EU.
Langseth is right that authorities are more expecting universities to engage with business, and that is moving us toward more competition as possible. But the collaboration is still very good and unique in the world. NTNU and Sintef recently hosted nine of the 22 long-term centers of the Research Council for Research-Driven Innovation (SFI). Through projects such as the Ocean Space Center and the Zero Emission Building Lab, we work together to ensure that the country has an infrastructure that allows it to prevail in international competition.
For the most part, we are partners in each other’s applications.
Langseth describes that the business community needs college employees who have the opportunity to specialize. He is right about that. But companies experience a hyper-complex reality in which solutions lie not only in the specific university experience you describe, but also in multidisciplinary solutions, where our customer-oriented research disseminates and brings together knowledge, inspiration and technology across industries. and companies. This makes the collaboration between NTNU and Sintef complementary and good.
Precisely because of the issues that Langseth addresses, the boards of NTNU and Sintef will meet soon both to celebrate the fruits of our good cooperation and to discuss what the new challenges require of us in the future.
The government is actively working in several areas that will influence the strategies and management models of universities and research institutes.
In all this work, it is important that the policy facilitates good incentives and performance indicators that trigger good models of collaboration in an effective and offensive knowledge sector that leverages its strengths and promotes knowledge and technology for a better society.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases via a link, which leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content may only be done with written permission or as permitted by law. For more terms, see here.
