Through the looking glass

Having blogged a little about industrial research  and its relationship with industry, I am now going through the looking glass and am about to move to research in academia. I have mentioned before how difficult it has been to be considered for an academic position when you have been working in industry for so long and don’t have the academic record of and academic working in academia. I was then fortunate that a position intended to pursue research with a view to forging connections with industry became available. A position actually putting academics at a disadvantage as it required industrial research experience.
So I am soon to start and I shall be bringing to the role plenty of opinions about the problems that academics have with trying to collaborate with industry. Much of this will be the substance of future posts, so I don’t want to waste it all now, but there is certainly a big misalignment between what academia wants to do and what industry expects. Aligning these two views will take quite some effort and I dare say it will be academia that needs to budge.
Some universities are better than others at connecting with, talking to and working with industry. With a new emphasis by funding bodies on impact and exploitation , the industrial relationship is becoming more important to getting funding through traditional routes. An industrial colleague of mine recently visited a department at Cambridge University. He said that slowly it was beginning to dawn on them that they need to start seriously working out how they are actually going to get involved with industry. There was an innate arrogance about the place which had taken a bit of a hit when they did not get a grant renewed because another university had some commercial funding that had swayed the assessors to go with a university that was trying harder. Cambridge had assumed they would get funding because they were Cambridge.     There needs to be a change of culture in academia and there will be some aspect of Darwinian competition that's going to upset some people.
Now I happen to think that the EPSRC (the funding body for UK science research) has got some things badly wrong of late – such as concentrating all PhD’ s in doctoral training centres, and not allowing grant proposals to fund PhD students. These have dried up the lifeblood of research around UK institutions  and seriously reduced the base of creative innovation. But we are where we are and there is no denying that academic institutions need to grasp the nettle of culture change required to successfully integrate with industry and compete successfully for funded research.

is the academic and industrial research link working

The relationship between industry and academia is a varied and interesting one. I've seen it work well but I have also seen it go the other way. In a sort of ideal scenario then an academic would have a bright idea which would be investigated with grant funding. After a suitable period of investigation where the concept is proven it should be picked up by industry who will develop it into a practical realisation that can ultimately be sold. Everyones happy, the academic got funding to do some interesting work, the industry acquired something useful that they can sell. The industry didn't have to invest lots of its own money in a range of ideas that mostly did not work, but was able to pick the winner and put its resources behind it with confidence. The grant funding body is happy because it has successfully used tax payers money to good effect so that a commercial gain will boost the economy. Consumers are happy as they have something new to buy. The university may well have filed some intellectual property and will have some successful publications. All is well then, except it rarely works like that. Almost every grant proposal now must explain the impact of the work. How the results will be exploited so as to provide some economic benefit. Apparently every piece of research is going to do something significant. I wonder if anyone has correlated the pay offs against the promises. Does the country get value for money from its investment in research? I know that science should be done for the sake of knowledge, but exploitation is now part ot the exam question so is it working or not? Exploitation requires a proper relationship with industry, not just a cursory letter of support  with the grant proposal, but on going involvement. Small leverage of the project direction at the beginning can make a big difference at the end of the project to how easy to develop the idea is. Industry also has to be willing and able to get involved and stay involved. That can sometimes mean that industry needs some funding stream. This is an often neglected aspect. There is an assumption that industry is awash with money that it can throw around . There can be several reasons why this is not the case. Firstly small companies may not have any spare cash to risk. Larger companies may have more money, but for the industrial researchers they will have to make a business case to get internal funding to pursue academic relations. This is competed money and therefore the results have to be worth it. My experience is that timescales can be problem. Academia will offer a 3 year PhD whereas industry might want the product in 2 years. Timescales are the big disparity. Academia just does not have the people on tap to rapidly switch on a project. This is where the value of the researh organistions, such as the Faunhofer institutes should really start to showas you can get the best of both worlds. With industry and academia seemingly competing for the same funding streams it is ever more important that we collaborate to get the best out of everyone.

Industrial uniform

I recently attended a technical fayre and mini exhibition. As i walked around it was obvious who the business people were -they were the ones wearing suits. Technical types (such as me) and academics  rarely wear suits. So why do so many others ? The suit is a business uniform. The abence of a suit is also a kind of uniform. It is a kind of statement that says 'I'm more interested in the science than the business'  and that actually is the case. There is nothing wrong with that. You need people who are focussed on the science just as much as you need people who are focussed on the business, in order to provide a proper balance. But the odd thing is this; the suit is a visible credential , its almost as if in business you wouldn't trust someone who wasn't wearing a suit. And yet I distrust people more if they are wearing a suit.
Recently in hospital whilst looking after my injured child, I visited a cafe to get a drink. In the cafe was a person wearing a pinstripe suit and waistcoat. It was obvious they were in the hospital to sell stuff. It felt really inappropriate that someone was there is full view with the purpose of making a profit whilst the rest of us were only concerned about our sick children. I know that is irrational because everything that is used in the hospital results in profit for someone, and there is so much waste that selling to hospitals must be very profitable. But it just seemed a bit too in your face. Do business people feel they have a better chance of a sale if they are in a suit? Do they think that it is being disrespectful to the purchaser if they dont wear a suit? Do they think the customer wont buy from them without the suit?
In my company none of the technical people wear suits. Most of the commercial people do however. Even those that rarely leave the office or meet people outside of the company. Perhaps they are trying to instill into their colleagues the impression that they are  a professional, perhaps they are trying to instill into themselves the very same opinion. 
I think that in the technical community at least there is the opinion that the way I look does not affect the way I think. Obviously I have a lot of sympathy with point of view, but I also think that if the way you dress makes you feel more confident it will show through in what you do and how you interact. Equally so if wearing a suit makes you feel uncomfortable.

Applied science

One of the new perspectives that arises from a child being in hospital is one of the application of science. Actual application is another planet to many people who just want to pursue some science. To me application is what its all about. But when I look at the usefulness of what I actually do witnessing the science in action is inspirational. I saw an echo cardiogram machine which was one of the most amazing bits of scientific technology I have ever seen. I understood what I was seeing, the slice through the heart seen by the fan of ultrasound reflecting of various tissue type. A view from under the ribs, from the middle of the chest, from the side . Video at 70 frames per second of the heart valves pumping. Doppler measurements of the 2MHz ultrasound beam showing the direction of blood flow, measurements of the size of arteries. All this because my son had a low resting heart rate and the doctors wanted just to have a look and see what was there. He was fine by the way, at least his heart was. It made me realise that there is so much genuine advantage that can be wrought from the well directed use of science. I can achieve so much more than I currently do tinkering and toying with small amounts of defence funding. I must achieve more.

The onset of perspective

For three days now I  have been sat in a childrens hospital by my sons bedside. The fragility of the things that really matter to you will of course lead to achange of current perspective. Not much else matters other than my sons condition and the state of the rest of my family, not work, not academia or its lack. Physics matters a bit as I talk to the doctors and explain that I am science conversant and I understand the science behind nuclear medicine and i understand cause and effect. There is no intellectual competition going on,  I just want to understand whats happening. I suppose the powerlessness and lack of control have the effect of making you try to have some influence. scientifically speaking we tend to call the shots on what we do in the lab. So many times do we assume mastery over nature, its all a bit different when there is nothing we can do.

Wait for me, I want to do research too.

If it is a love of your subject that drives you, a desire to 'do research' then there are some things that you need to consider regarding how you undertake that research. In the modern age there are certain things that are taken for granted, so how would you cope witout those things. Let me explain. Research in industry or in government labs doesn't have the same freedom as is generally available to academia. This is most often to do with security ;- be that national security or commercial security - but it is also about cost. Here are a list of things that I cant do:

Due to concerns over network and information security I cannot make use of external sharing and storage sites. Now this may not seem all that serious, and its not, its just inconvenient. In a collaborative proposal with a university I was sent a link to a dropbox folder where all the documentation and proposal information was being kept. The idea being of course that with several of us providing input we could keep an up to date current version that was accessible to all parties. Except me. I needed to do all communication via email which is somewhat slower and less efficient for all concerned.   I could of course access dropbox from home, however I am not allowed to send company related information or documents to our home via email or any other means, due to concerns about the security of our home computers. So no working at home then.

Email is one of those troublesome issues. I cant access my email if I am not at my desk. This is partially my fault. I cannot log in to my company email acccount from any of my own devices. I would need a dedicated device supplied by the company, just for the purposes of email. So I would have to carry this around as well as all my own devices. Also I need to complete a business case to say why I need it. I am not keen . Although I have contributed to this situation the net result is that I am often out of touch. A number of times I have been visiting people who have emailed some instructions which I simply could not use because I could not pick up the email.
All personal electronic devices are banned from the work place. This can discomfort some visitors who are suddenly separated from their mobile phones for  number of hours. You can almost feel their sense of loss as they itch to check their messages. This reduces the methods of communication, which is part of the security but does not help in keeping in touch with colleagues outside of the organisation.

 The internet is the lifeblood of civilisation it seems, so of course we have internet access, but the firewalls and protection that is in place can often block access to potentially useful information - like blogs. Bad luck if you want information thats on a social network. But the biggest problem is access to scientific information. Most scientific literature is behind a paywall and there are no subscriptions to learned journals. It is basically impossible to get to the bottom of a subject by viewing all the scientific literature or even a good chunk of it. Google scholar is essential as it can point you to freely available sources. Open access publications are a godsend. If you have taken your institutional subscription to various publishing houses for granted them imagine having no access to any of those interesting looking papers, or being able to look at the forward citation chain. It is hugely restricting in terms of understanding a subject and for trying to get a substantive set of references for a publication. Open access publication can have an economic impact by speeding up research and for preventing reinvention.

One of my colleagues went to check up on a paper he has submitted to a journal. He found he could not get access to the site because the web browser we have to use (for security purposes) is so wildly out of date that the site wont deal with it. There is no chance of getting it upgraded because there is always a security person who knows better than you do! .. and as he is not supposed to work from home he is rather hamstrung about how to get his paper published. 

It is as if he last decade has not happened  - and yes I am still using XP. The capability to communicate freely and find any piece of information in the digital world has lead to a backlash in security that clamps down on that freedom. It's getting worse and going backwards.
So why might I be interested in moving to academia? - because I want to actually do some research and do it efficiently. This is why the cost of doing business is so expensive. Security kills freedom and process kills creativity. It's a different world out there and the grass might look greener because it is painted.

plus ca change, plus cést la meme chose

For many years I have not understood economics. To a physicist the idea that, overnight the value of the country or even the planet can change suddenly, where no physical change has occurred, is somewhat of an anathema. The amount of stuff can remain the same so how can the value change. Its all related to confidence. A bit wishy washy to a scientist.
But now I have had my own version of that peculiar scenario.Yesterday I received a rejection after applying for an academic position. It seems that everything I have done and achieved counts for nought. It wasn't that I expected to get the job, I didn't. But I did think i'd done enough to get an interview.
So now the following day nothing has changed, except that everything has changed. I now realise that no matter what my particular individual talents, I cant see me ever getting into academia, because I have spent so many years doing something else -whilst being a professional physicist. My confidence has taken a big hit and I have to reconsider how I might direct my career.