The workshop outcomes are compiled in the report (PDF below) and it is structured around two themes: barriers to collaboration industry-academia and industry requirements and the skills gap.
A. LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
![PEOPLE](/sites/default/files/paragraph-images/clipart2469909_0.png)
The attendants to the workshop had diverse backgrounds and professional experiences and they were from big biotechnology companies and SMEs.
- Bryn Roberts - Roche: SVP & Global Head of Data & Analytics
- David Humphreys - UCB: Senior Director, Head of New Modality Therapeutics
- Duncan Simpson - Canon Medical Research Europe Ltd.: R&D Partnerships and Projects
- Ken Scott - University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics: Business Development Manager
- Luke Williams - Enara: Director of Biology
- Madhuri Cherukumilli - Boehringer Ingelheim: Manager External Digital Innovation
- Malcom Skingle - GlaxoSmithKline: Director, Academic liaison
- Mhairi Towler - Vivomotion: Founder and CEO
- Miika Ahdesmaki - AstraZeneca: Head of Bioinformatics and Data Science
- Nils Kölling - Genomics plc.: Manager of Therapeutics Data Science
- Rob Kitchen - Novo Nordisk: Director of Computational Biology
- Saverio Niccolini - NEC Labs: General Manager - Data Science and System Platform Research
Speaker:
- Prof. Rory Duncan - Sheffield Hallam University: Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation)
B. INVITED SPEAKER
Prof Rory Duncan gave a talk about the key challenges to R&D in the UK, and the importance of enhancing R&D through creating more porous career pathways between academia, industry and other sectors. Key points:
- Increasing flexibility and mobility between careers in academia and industry.
- Big opportunity: a lot of funding for Research and Innovation.
- REF positive in general, but negative to increase porosity between sectors.
- A PhD should be seen as a way of training to develop high level skills. Moving out of academia is not a failure.
![Rory Duncan](/sites/default/files/paragraph-images/Rory_0_1.png)
C. UNDERSTANDING BARRIERS TO COLLABORATION
![Klimt - Unity](/sites/default/files/paragraph-images/imgbin_the-tree-of-life-png.png)
Participants were split in groups to discuss challenges and ways to strengthen interdisciplinary industry-academia collaborations.
C1. Barriers to industry – academia collaborations
- IP agreements.
- Cultural differences: fear from academics to lose control or direction.
- Funding and resources: time, freedom of postdocs to move.
- REF: might hinder porous career progression.
- Keeping security for those who wants to move.
- Need of reducing risks to the individuals.
C2. How to promote interdisciplinary industry-academia collaborations
- Open science models, Lambert Agreement, Open Innovation.
- Offer more training for academics: team work.
- Change culture of leaving academia as failure.
- Secondments and joint PhD studentships.
- Next REF is likely to change, enabling more movement between sectors.
- Establishment of different models: fee for service, consortium model (i.e. DSTT in Dundee), consultants.
- Creating schemes in research councils to promote porosity.
- Funding for secondments.
- Place more value on developing holistic researchers.
D. UNDERSTANDING INDUSTRY REQUIREMENTS AND THE SKILLS GAP
![RDF](/sites/default/files/paragraph-images/RDF%20website.png)
D1. Industry recruitment and skill preferences
- Need for data and computational skills, programming and AI.
- High data standards (FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable).
- Ability to work in teams and in interdisciplinarity.
- Effective communication skills: from lay audiences to publication.
- Critical path analysis and problem solving.
- Tendency to hire at the postdoc level.
- Fellowships and studentships should be incentivised to recruit the right employees from academia.
D2. Interdisciplinary skills missing in new recruits
- Need of high standards for data and integrity.
- Team work – feedback.
- Genuine problem solving: efficiently and minimally.
- Outsourcing when required.
- Critical path analysis.
E. Further resources
Links to further resources were provided to help participants to find appropriate support.
Experiences from biomedicine
- Gilliland, D.G., Regev, A., Schadt, E.E. et al. (2022) Traversing industry and academia in biomedicine: the best of both worlds?. Nat Rev Genet 23, 461–466 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-022-00486-5
- Knapp B, Bardenet R, Bernabeu MO, Bordas R, Bruna M, Calderhead B, et al. (2015) Ten Simple Rules for a Successful Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration. PLoS Comput Biol, 11(4): e1004214 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004214
- Ponting C. P. (2020) Genetics Needs Non-geneticists. Trends in genetics, 36(9), 629–630. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2020.06.015
For collaborations
- Bennett et al. (2018) Collaboration and Team Science: A Field Guide (2nd ed). National Cancer Institute, US Department of Health & Human Services. Available at https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/organization/crs/research-initiatives/team-science-field-guide/collaboration-team-science-guide.pdf
- Gadlin, H. & Jessar, K., Pre-empting Discord: Prenuptial Agreements for Scientists, NIH Ombudsman. Available at https://ori.hhs.gov/preempting-discord-prenuptial-agreements-scientists