4 ms·

But isn't this typical to R&D ? that only 1 of N projects gets used for commercial purposes ?

by petra 6y ago

lemonspat 6y ago
I read the previous comment as: there wasn’t anyone at the end trying to help make it actually commercialized
- touisteur 6y ago
  But not every R&D project can or should lead to a commercial product right away. I work in a big corp and sometimes the tech you invested in, even if the PoC was great and all successful, doesn't fit in any final product because of thousands of other constraints. But I also see lots of small 'mindshare' changes thanks to those 'it can be done' projects. The important steps seem to be to first unlock the first TRLs, then find PoCs on real products to inspire (and increase TRLs) tech directors and product managers that they need to invest the next millions into an big and still uncertain shift, and to underinvest in other important parts of their products. In the case of tech push you often end up with a new shiny tech that can't be used right away. So, mostly, it's about climbing the maturity ladder, and be ready for the very small openings in the product development cycle to shoe your new tech in. In the case of customer pull or market pull, the lead time of such projects makes it too late to ask for external help, and no research grant wants to participate in 'product development' (not their job). So the tech is usually badly implemented and leaves a sour taste. What I see as positive: if you have a great tech idea and available resources, and great academic/labs contacts, you can get the money, with little resistance (but yes, lots of admin work) with either European or national/regional grants. IIRC the 2014 version of SPARK was designed and developed through a French civilian R&D funding project : http://www.open-do.org/projects/hi-lite/ http://www.open-do.org/projects/hi-lite/ The project was clearly a success there (although I don't know about ROI or profitability for AdaCore on this tech). Working with innovative SMBs is a great way to get funding in France and most of the projects that I've seen tend to conclude in new products... for the SMB. But the scale is low there (<4MEUR), so it also helps to accept failure ('only' 4m 'wasted'...).
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    'TRL' ?
    - touisteur 6y ago
      Sorry, jargon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level Funny thing, the wiki page explicitly cites horizon2020 (which one of the GPs criticized): "The European Commission advised EU-funded research and innovation projects to adopt the scale in 2010.[1] TRLs were consequently used in 2014 in the EU Horizon 2020 program. In 2013, the TRL scale was further canonized by the ISO 16290:2013 standard.[1] A comprehensive approach and discussion of TRLs has been published by the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO).[3] Extensive criticism of the adoption of TRL scale by the European Union was published in The Innovation Journal, stating that the "concreteness and sophistication of the TRL scale gradually diminished as its usage spread outside its original context (space programs)"."
- meh2frdf 6y ago
  It’s more than that in my experience, often the concept was a non starter, or the output is nothing an enterprise couldn’t do it self if so motivated, and certainly aren’t going to bother picking through the mess of some academic code base.
rualca 6y ago
> But isn't this typical to R&D ? that only 1 of N projects gets used for commercial purposes ? The OP forgot to mention that one of the goals in the Horizon2020 projects is to provide incentives to create pan-european collaborations involving industrial, academic, and institutional organizations. In short, they are aimed to bridge the gap between academia and industry, and also create synergies between multiple organizations across Europe. For example, some programs require applicants to partner with research institutions and industrial companies of significant and arbitrary size to be able to even submit a proposal. Thus, it's disingenuous to evaluate the success of these programs in terms of commercial products being developed out of these programs. The political goals of developing collaborations between member-states is far more important than delivering a gadget or a trinket. Similarly, we have the Erasmus program that enable higher-education students to spend a year in a school from a member state somewhere in Europe. It's disingenuous to assume the goal of the Erasmus program is solely academic.
- Radim 6y ago
  As someone who came from academia, now runs a commercial company, and having participated in several large consortia projects (including Horizon 2020), I find your perspective… charming. I hope you never get to experience how the sausage is made. And where you taxes really go.
  - touisteur 6y ago
    I agree it's very difficult to run large-scale research projects with consortia, etc. And even worse at EU scale with public money. I'm not sure whether there's a better way to balance the admin-load against all the scamming, or to avoid 'favoring' one nation's industry or other. When you do something on processors, you'll probably have to keep the door open to all big & small European actors, right? I feel all the administrative overload is a way to avoid all kinds of political problems. Yes, Europeans complain about bureaucracy from the EU and here about the ERC, but the moment someone comes with more 'pragmatic' processes, either you see some 10+MEUR-level abuse quite quickly, or you get some blast about bad management of the tax payers money, and calls for more oversight. I don't have a solution, and without a united EU military/defense budget I don't see anything DARPA-like emerging. And it seems only European military budgets (still sovereign) and regional budgets (regionalism being, to me, the biggest flaw in the modern EU vision) seem spent on 'low admin we trust you let's try this just convince this panel of scientists and admins' funding. While I think it's great for labs/research funding, for product derisking and creating competitive edges for the local industry, and for SMEs and overall high tech employment, you're not going to create a semiconductor industry like this. I've seen the results of several ERC consortia projects and am sometimes impressed with what EU-based research (academics+smb+large groups) can do with so little money (on each subject) and, yes, so much admin overhead.

But isn't this typical to R&D ? that only 1 of N projects gets used for commercial purposes ?

by petra 6y ago

But isn't this typical to R&D ? that only 1 of N projects gets used for commercial purposes ?

lemonspat 6y ago

I read the previous comment as: there wasn’t anyone at the end trying to help make it actually commercialized

touisteur 6y ago
But not every R&D project can or should lead to a commercial product right away. I work in a big corp and sometimes the tech you invested in, even if the PoC was great and all successful, doesn't fit in any final product because of thousands of other constraints. But I also see lots of small 'mindshare' changes thanks to those 'it can be done' projects. The important steps seem to be to first unlock the first TRLs, then find PoCs on real products to inspire (and increase TRLs) tech directors and product managers that they need to invest the next millions into an big and still uncertain shift, and to underinvest in other important parts of their products. In the case of tech push you often end up with a new shiny tech that can't be used right away. So, mostly, it's about climbing the maturity ladder, and be ready for the very small openings in the product development cycle to shoe your new tech in. In the case of customer pull or market pull, the lead time of such projects makes it too late to ask for external help, and no research grant wants to participate in 'product development' (not their job). So the tech is usually badly implemented and leaves a sour taste. What I see as positive: if you have a great tech idea and available resources, and great academic/labs contacts, you can get the money, with little resistance (but yes, lots of admin work) with either European or national/regional grants. IIRC the 2014 version of SPARK was designed and developed through a French civilian R&D funding project : http://www.open-do.org/projects/hi-lite/ http://www.open-do.org/projects/hi-lite/ The project was clearly a success there (although I don't know about ROI or profitability for AdaCore on this tech). Working with innovative SMBs is a great way to get funding in France and most of the projects that I've seen tend to conclude in new products... for the SMB. But the scale is low there (<4MEUR), so it also helps to accept failure ('only' 4m 'wasted'...).
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  'TRL' ?
  - touisteur 6y ago
    Sorry, jargon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level Funny thing, the wiki page explicitly cites horizon2020 (which one of the GPs criticized): "The European Commission advised EU-funded research and innovation projects to adopt the scale in 2010.[1] TRLs were consequently used in 2014 in the EU Horizon 2020 program. In 2013, the TRL scale was further canonized by the ISO 16290:2013 standard.[1] A comprehensive approach and discussion of TRLs has been published by the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO).[3] Extensive criticism of the adoption of TRL scale by the European Union was published in The Innovation Journal, stating that the "concreteness and sophistication of the TRL scale gradually diminished as its usage spread outside its original context (space programs)"."
meh2frdf 6y ago
It’s more than that in my experience, often the concept was a non starter, or the output is nothing an enterprise couldn’t do it self if so motivated, and certainly aren’t going to bother picking through the mess of some academic code base.

rualca 6y ago

> But isn't this typical to R&D ? that only 1 of N projects gets used for commercial purposes ? The OP forgot to mention that one of the goals in the Horizon2020 projects is to provide incentives to create pan-european collaborations involving industrial, academic, and institutional organizations. In short, they are aimed to bridge the gap between academia and industry, and also create synergies between multiple organizations across Europe. For example, some programs require applicants to partner with research institutions and industrial companies of significant and arbitrary size to be able to even submit a proposal. Thus, it's disingenuous to evaluate the success of these programs in terms of commercial products being developed out of these programs. The political goals of developing collaborations between member-states is far more important than delivering a gadget or a trinket. Similarly, we have the Erasmus program that enable higher-education students to spend a year in a school from a member state somewhere in Europe. It's disingenuous to assume the goal of the Erasmus program is solely academic.

Radim 6y ago
As someone who came from academia, now runs a commercial company, and having participated in several large consortia projects (including Horizon 2020), I find your perspective… charming. I hope you never get to experience how the sausage is made. And where you taxes really go.
- touisteur 6y ago
  I agree it's very difficult to run large-scale research projects with consortia, etc. And even worse at EU scale with public money. I'm not sure whether there's a better way to balance the admin-load against all the scamming, or to avoid 'favoring' one nation's industry or other. When you do something on processors, you'll probably have to keep the door open to all big & small European actors, right? I feel all the administrative overload is a way to avoid all kinds of political problems. Yes, Europeans complain about bureaucracy from the EU and here about the ERC, but the moment someone comes with more 'pragmatic' processes, either you see some 10+MEUR-level abuse quite quickly, or you get some blast about bad management of the tax payers money, and calls for more oversight. I don't have a solution, and without a united EU military/defense budget I don't see anything DARPA-like emerging. And it seems only European military budgets (still sovereign) and regional budgets (regionalism being, to me, the biggest flaw in the modern EU vision) seem spent on 'low admin we trust you let's try this just convince this panel of scientists and admins' funding. While I think it's great for labs/research funding, for product derisking and creating competitive edges for the local industry, and for SMEs and overall high tech employment, you're not going to create a semiconductor industry like this. I've seen the results of several ERC consortia projects and am sometimes impressed with what EU-based research (academics+smb+large groups) can do with so little money (on each subject) and, yes, so much admin overhead.