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Research Collaboration:understanding the challenges to cooperation/FP7 - Professor Stephen Flint, Associate Dean for Internationalisation, University of Manchester
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Research collaboration: understanding the
challenges to cooperation
Stephen Flint
University of Manchester
European University cooperation in the era of globalisation London, November 19th 2013
UK research - productive
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World shares according to Elsevier - International Comparative Performance of the UK Research Base – 2011
International Vice-Chancellors’ Declaration to G8 leaders
• Take action to allow easier movement of academics, researchers and university students between states
• Invest more in universities to ensure economic growth • Simplify and open-up the international patent
infrastructure to allow greater innovation from research
• Establish a new Global Institution that identifies and promotes best-practice in university-business relations across member nations and beyond
The largest single site university in the UK40,000 students
11,000 Postgraduate29,000 Undergraduate9,000 International students
25 Nobel prize winners incl. Physics prize in 2010
Manchester’s Internationalisation track record
‘Patchy’: ranges from very strong to rather limited, across different faculties
Two Examples:
Manchester Business School Worldwide (MBSW)- Offices in Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Miami, Sao Paulo- Blended learning MBA and other programmes
Physics-Large presence at CERN (Geneva) and Fermi Lab (Chicago)-Site of Project Office for the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope
University of Manchester and FP7
• 377 projects covering all thematic areas - 6th in the FP7 league table among other UK universities
• UoM FP7 success rate is 29%• Established consortia with strong leadership and
management secured multiple successes and are well placed to influence Commission decisions for Horizon 2020
• ERC Synergy award with Cambridge and Lancaster Universities
• FET Flagship projects in Graphene and the Human Brain • Marie Curie Initial Training Networks and collaboration with
similar projects/groups/institutions across Europe• Taken advantage of opening of the programme to partners in
third countries such as the US, China and South America
A personal view
EU FP5 Energie award, 2001-04
This cemented long term links between the partners (TU Delft, Schlumberger, Statoil, Manchester) that are still in place
Has led to many PhDs and a mix of government and industry funding for 10 years after end of project
Example: Manchester Collaborations with Brazil (2012-13)
Faculty visit in Nov 2012 (Petrobras Research Centre)
Manchester and USP joint geological fieldwork Manchester and FAPESP sign £0.5M research collaboration agreement
South American Biomass Burning Analysis (SAMBBA)A Brazil-UK International Collaborative Experiment
University ofManchester
PartnerInstitution
Country-basedIndustry partnerCore funding andscientific/engineeringinput
Co-InvestigatorsCo-supervision of PGRsCo-supervision of Post-Docs
Collaborative Research Projects
-genuine partnerships with sharing of responsibilities and outputs integral role of industry partner in helping to define the research and providing core funding
Example: Manchester’s collaboration with business
• Several blue chip strategic alliances & others in negotiation
• Over 175 industrial partners• Examples of strategic partnership
– Tesco Sustainable Consumption Institute: £25m– National Grid Power Systems Research Centre:
£4m– Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre: £2m
• Links with over 300 companies
Example
$100 million BP International Centre for Advanced Materials – Manchester Hub with Cambridge, Imperial College and Illinois Urbana as spokes
Different University structures and bureaucracies (administrative time frames, strikes, capacity, etc.)
Timeframes
Helps to have a common driver (funding opportunity or common natural/social research issue(s)
Consolidating research collaborations so that they operate above the level of individual academics and survive more than one grant/PhD cycle
Issues and problems: experience from Manchester
How do we increase the amount of collaboration across Europe?
How do we ensure quality and world relevance of this collaboration?
What are the ‘blockers’?
Next steps?
Possible discussion points
Specific Issues with FP7
• Frequent changes to EC admin processes has meant that training has been on-going in FP7 engagement, especially with introduction of new electronic systems
• Issues with SME involvement towards the end of the programme did cause problems especially when the actual percentage SME involvement was quoted specifically in the call text – on occasion this did lead to less than ideal consortia being developed as proposals were built around securing this percentage involvement - sometimes at the expense of the quality of the project as a whole.
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