Universities serve as sources of new people and ideas for corporations. As well, university-industry collaborations serve as lynchpins for businesses seeking to open up new avenues of engagement with the broader innovation ecosystem. University-industry interaction is a natural and robust element of stakeholder engagement, particularly in an innovation context. For example, universities may anchor engagement with and support of the early stages of the innovation process through to start-up formation, thus allowing industries a mechanism of reaching out and into the broader ecosystem. Therefore, a new innovation ecosystem approach to corporate innovation places even greater reliance on university relationships if they are to serve as a source of people and ideas and as a conduit to new start-ups and deeper ecosystem interactions.

Dr Tamás Fődi

With this in mind, we continue our interview series with FlowPhotoChem industry partners. For this R&D case study, we met with Dr Tamás Fődi, a Chemical Engineer at ThalesNano (https://thalesnano.com/). ThalesNano was founded in 2002 in Budapest, Hungary and is the world leader in bench-top flow chemistry reactors. Their mission is to develop innovative electrolysis systems for gas generation and conversion to increase safety, expand chemistry, improve energy efficiency, and reduce environmental impact.

What primary business goals drive ThalesNano's (TN’s) university partnerships?

At ThalesNano (TN) we are committed to continuous innovation. The novelty of our award-winning H-Cube® and related technologies are used in hundreds of laboratories globally and have become the new industry standard. Within our university partnerships, we are aiming to bring revolutionary ideas to market by using these partnerships as either a technology testbed or as a sounding board for new product ideas.

How is FlowPhotoChem (FPC) aligned to TN’s business’s goals?

Within FPC university partnerships TN will get even better integrated into the electrochemical and catalysis communities and will be aware of the most recent scientific trends.

In addition to bringing the integrated FlowPhotoChem reactor to market, TN will create lab-based chemistry reagent gas generators as a substitute for hazardous gas cylinders. Gas cylinders are commonly used in laboratories around the world but they can be hazardous, especially if storing hazardous gases. TN envisions using FPC results to develop two substitutes for cylinders: (i) on-demand hydrogen generator from water for hydrogenation, and (ii) converter for waste CO2 to on-demand carbon monoxide, ethylene, or syngas.

By what criteria do you use to choose your university partnerships?

First of all, the field of research with outstanding applied scientific results must be relevant to TN’s business goals. On the other hand research capabilities, resources and facilities need to meet TN’s requirements.

How can collaboration formats be designed to match your topics and business goals?

In general, grants' objects are more attractive for an industrial partner if they are targeting an unmet technological or environmental need. To ensure that these needs be determined as accurately as possible, it is essential to involve industrial end-users and industry experts in the collaboration’s design process.

What organizational structures, people and processes support the business goals of your partnerships?

The role of a project coordinator as a facilitator of regular communication between partners and officers to meet targets and deliverables is crucial. As well as the work of an advisory board is essential in evaluating partnership achievements on a regular basis.

What are the KPIs that most usefully evaluate your university partnership?

As in the case of any other partnerships, university partnerships can be evaluated at the end of the project by investigating the fulfilment of the commitments. The quality and nature of communication and reporting can also be considered as KPI’s. The fundamentals of a successful working relationship are the periodic reporting of progress, meeting deadlines or in time communication of foreseen project delays, time to market, or any patent generation.

Thank you so much for taking the time to inform us about your academic R&D strategy.