Academic research and industry have often had siloed approaches. Academic research is essential to drive an industrial innovation. Often this research takes many years and may or may not result in commercial application. Over the last few years universities have been changing their old mind set and presentation, trying to raise the profile of their research and create impact in the community. It is about telling the story of the research and how that impacts society, that is key.
Large
organisations in industry are beginning again to have their own research
departments. In the last decade we saw the closure of many industry research
laboratories as they were seen as a luxury and not fully integrated with businesses. Academic research has often not addressed the individual needs of industry
and has, in some cases, not been keeping up with the speed of change in industry. There is a revival of
organisations creating research facilities or investing in research and development. Those smaller to medium companies which had research divisions, are also revamping their presence. Competitive advantage can be obtained through the results of innovation.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings new challenges to research. Collaboration between big players, such as
Microsoft Cortana and Amazon Alexa, aim to drive innovation
forward. Once AI starts to be integrated into products and businesses, the
insights and intelligence it brings, will begin to shape a new way of creating
commercial applications and possibilities for innovation.
The world today is full of complexity and data is the fuel that helps drive intelligent
action. Using data science, it helps breach that multi-disciplinary area to
benefit all. Businesses must be grounded in accurate data to produce the next
industrial revolution, through innovation and AI.
There
is a new computational research centre of excellence (CoSeC) in the UK. The centre is bringing together leading UK
expertise in key fields of computational research to tackle large-scale
scientific software development, maintenance and distribution. This will improve scientific research software, that is relied upon worldwide, by universities
and industries.
Thus, having a clear agenda that combines research and industry is the route to successfully navigating the fast moving business landscape.
Thus, having a clear agenda that combines research and industry is the route to successfully navigating the fast moving business landscape.
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