Intellectual Property management in publicly funded R&D centres—A comparison of university-based and company-based research centres

Recent thinking on open innovation and the knowledge-based economy have stressed the importance of external knowledge sources in stimulating innovation. Policy-makers have recognised this, establishing publicly funded Centres of R&D Excellence with the objective of stimulating industry–science links and localised innovation spillovers. Here, we examine the contrasting IP management practices of a group of 18 university- and company-based R&D centres supported by the same regional programme. Our analysis covers all but one of the Centres supported by the programme and suggests marked contrasts between the IP strategies of the university-based and company-based centres. This suggests the potential for very different types of knowledge spillovers from publicly funded R&D centres based in different types of organisations, and a range of alternative policy approaches to the future funding of R&D centres depending on policy-makers’ objectives.

Catalysing open innovation through publicly funded R&D: A Comparison of University and Company-based research centres

Public funding of university and company-based R&D centres of excellence is widespread both in core and more peripheral regions. What is less well-known is whether these R&D centres can catalyse multi-directional, multi-actor and iterative innovation. Based on data from a real-time monitoring study, this article explores the development of 18 R&D centres’ external connections. University-based R&D centres establish more new connections than company-based centres and are more likely to be interacting with small or micro-firms. However, there is a general bias towards links with larger firms; micro, small and medium-sized enterprises also are less likely to be involved in collaborative R&D with research centres than other types of relationships. The results suggest the potential for R&D centres to act as a catalyst for open innovation but emphasise the need to ensure that the focus of the R&D being conducted is relevant to the needs of smaller firms.

Creative Activism: a pedagogical and research tool

Environmental activism has a long history in protest, addressing issues of degradation and segregation that threaten existing ecologies, social and built fabrics. Environmental activism is traditionally understood as a reaction, chiefly by groups of people, against a perceived external threat. In the 60’s and 70’s, an activist stance began to emerge in the work of some artists and architects, who used creative methods such as performances, happenings, temporary spatial interventions etc to convey their political/aesthetic messages. Some of this work engaged directly with communities but predominantly it was the production of one individual working ‘outside’ society. However such actions demonstrated not only the power of the visual in conveying a political message but also the potential of conceptual creative approaches to reveal alternative values and hidden potentials. This marked a shift from activism as protestation towards an activism of reconceptualisation. Recently, activist groups have developed a more politically informed process. Whilst their ‘tools’ may resemble work from the 60’s and 70’s , their methodologies are non-traditional, ’rhizomatic’, pedagogical and fluid; working alongside, rather than against, the established power and funding structures. Such creative processes build new, often unexpected, stakeholder networks; offer neutral spaces in which contentious issues can be faced; and create better understanding of values and identities. They can also lead to permanent improvements and development in the physical fabric. This paper will discuss a pedagogical example of activism in architectural education. The event (www.fourdaysontheoutside.com) is in its fifth year of existence and as such has revealed a value and impulse beyond its learning and teaching value. The paper will discuss how the event contributes to the university’s outreach programme and how its structure acts as a seedbed for potential research projects and partnerships. UK Universities talk extensively about applied research but have few actual strategies by which to generate it. Fourdaysontheoutside offers some potential ways forward.

Creating advantage in peripheral regions: The role of publicly funded R&D centres

Regional investment in R&D, technological development and innovation is perceived as being strongly associated with productivity, growth and sustained international competitiveness. One policy instrument by which policy makers have attempted to create regional advantage has been the establishment of publicly funded research centres (PRCs). In this paper we develop a logic model for this type of regional intervention and examine the outputs and longer-term outcomes from a group of (18) publicly funded R&D centres. Our results suggest some positive regional impacts but also identify significant differences in terms of innovation, additionality and sustainability between university-based and company-based PRCs. University-based PRCs have higher levels of short-term additionality, demonstrate higher levels of organisational innovation but prove less sustainable. Company-based PRCs demonstrate more partial additionality in the short-term but ultimately prove more sustainable.

A cluster randomised controlled trial evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis of the Roots of Empathy schools-based programme for improving social and emotional wellbeing outcomes among 8-9 year olds in Northern Ireland

A substantial body of evidence suggest that well designed school based prevention programmes can be effective in improving a variety of social, health and academic outcomes for children and young people. This poster presents the methodology for evaluating the Roots of Empathy (ROE) programme. ROE is a universal programme delivered on a whole-class basis for one academic year. It consists of 27 lessons that run over a school year and is based around a monthly classroom visit by an infant and parent, typically recruited from the local community, whom the class 'adopts' at the start of the school year. The evaluation aims to evaluate the immediate and longer term impact of ROE on social and emotional wellbeing outcomes among 8-9 year old pupils, as well as evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the programme.

Financial reintegration assistance for veterans of the Irish revolution (1916-23): post-conflict policy in an historical setting

In the aftermath of the Irish revolution and Civil War the governments of independent Ireland introduced various compensation schemes to provide financial reintegration assistance to revolutionary veterans. This would be recognised today as part of a programme for DDR. This paper will examine various service and disability pensions paid to veterans in the context of literature on post-conflict reintegration. It will examine various challenges to reintegration in an effort to analyse the success of revolutionary compensation as a post-conflict reintegration mechanism in independent Ireland after 1922.

The Newsletter of the International Federation for Research in Women's History: Presentation to Its Conference in Sofia, 8 August 2007

Presented as part of the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the International Federation for Research in Women's History in Sofia in August 2007, this paper examines the association's newsletter to explore what it reveals about the expansion of the academic infrastructure for women's history from 1987 to 2007. It looks at the rapid advancement of the subject in the 1980s and early 1990s and its slower growth in the following decade. It also explores briefly the problems that the establishment of Women's Studies Centres presented for women's history.