Markus Bayegan, ABB’s Chief Technology Officer responsible for Group R&D and technology, will shortly be addressing a conference at the University, discussing how ABB manages its R&D portfolio.
The University of Cambridge will be hosting the conference on the 17th March to discuss how industry and academia can foster even more effective relationships. The Horizon R&D Management conference will enable companies and academics to talk through the continued global trend towards “outsourcing” R&D at research institutions, opening debate on the most effective mechanisms for enabling and managing this.
Markus Bayegan, ABB’s Chief Technology Officer responsible for Group R&D and technology, will address the event, discussing how ABB manages its R&D portfolio. The company has recently joined the University of Cambridge’s Corporate Liaison Programme, establishing a new framework for R&D management between the partners that promises exciting results. The conference will be opened by the University’s new Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, Professor Ian Leslie.
ABB has a long history of delivering innovation through working with Cambridge. ABB is active with the University’s Institute for Manufacturing on the Manufacturing Leaders’ Programme and, amongst other collaborations, invests in “spintronics” research at Cambridge’s world-famous Cavendish Laboratory.
Markus Bayegan, Chief Technology Officer responsible for Group R&D and technology, said:
“Developing relationships with the leading research universities in the US, Europe and Asia is a key element in our global R&D strategy. We have been working closely with Cambridge University for more than four years, and this mutual exchange of ideas and information is proving invaluable in helping to encourage some of the best young researchers in the world as well as giving ABB access to the latest developments in emerging technologies.”
Recently ABB decided to extend its relationship with Cambridge University by becoming a member of the University’s new Corporate Liaison Programme. This innovative scheme provides the company with a relationship manager from the University’s Corporate Liaison Office, a “virtual” member of the ABB R&D team, who explores the University to identify projects of mutual interest to the company and Cambridge. Currently Dr Aled Jones, the Corporate Liaison Office’s relationship manager for ABB, is working with the company to develop a research project on human-machine interface technologies. ABB is bringing its know-how in large scale manufacturing, the University contributing its expertise on software to enable Machine Intelligence.
Mark Bayegan continued:
“ A mutual understanding of the potential and the needs at both partners are of utmost importance for a common success in R&D.”.
The Cambridge conference in March will also discuss other innovations in research partnerships. Dr Andy Woods, Director of the BP Institute at Cambridge, and Dr Bill Jones, from the Cambridge Pfizer Institute, will discuss the research models that have led to success in their fields. David Probert from the Cambridge Centre for Technology Management, will examine new tools companies can use for planning R&D activities. Dr Kamal Munir from the Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge University’s Business School, will look at the latest approaches to managing technologies that have the potential to disrupt entire markets.
Dr Christopher Padfield, Director of the Corporate Liaison Office at Cambridge, said:
“Cambridge has bucked the UK trend of decreasing investment in University R&D. Last year the University’s research income totalled £230M, reflecting an average increase of 8% for each year over the past 10 years.”
Dr Padfield argues this is due to Cambridge’s tailored approach to building research collaborations. He continued:
“We invest a lot of time in establishing a relationship framework that meets the specific objectives of researchers both in industry and the University.”