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

Thank youstephen.flint@manchester.ac.uk

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.