In a report commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and compiled after regional meetings, workshops and over 210 written submissions of evidence from both academia and industry, Dame Ann said the complexity of the existing support mechanisms creates frustration and confusion and means the UK is not reaping the full potential of its opportunity to connect businesses with research being done in UK universities.
She said there were two approaches to streamlining the system: reducing the overall number of schemes or simplifying the interface between the user and the scheme. She recommended that government does both.
She said: "We need a change of culture in our universities to support and encourage collaboration with industry. In the UK we can be a bit dismissive about research that actually has an application, but in reality such use-inspired research can be truly excellent.
"Access to industry projects was cited very positively by the researchers we consulted - they want to be working on these challenging and interesting projects with demonstrable impact and excellent career prospects."
The review said there is a gap in the market to encourage academia-industry research partnerships to grow, particularly in helping existing short-term, project-based collaborations to evolve into longer term partnerships focused on use-inspired research. The review proposed a new 'Awards for Collaborative Excellence' scheme that would provide pump-priming funds on a competitive basis to enable strong relationships between individuals in academia and industry to develop into group collaborations with critical mass, substantial industry funding and a long-term horizon.
Dame Ann said: "Solutions to everyday problems could be sitting in a lab right now, but without the conversation with industry they could be missed. It is vital that research students in appropriate disciplines spend some time in industry in order to get a new perspective on their own research, expand knowledge, and build relationships. They should also receive training, particularly around entrepreneurship."
http://www.raeng.org.uk/policy/dowling-review
