Issue 15 winter 08

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PDF Downloads This article All articles in issue 015 Create 'My eIQ' Email send via email Contact EIRMA send us a messageLinks CNRS Saint-Gobain Centre de Recherche Paul PascalRhône-Poulenc (now part of Sanofi-Aventis) Rhodia Responsible Partnering Handbook on identifying good partners in public/private research collaborations – see page 8 here

Didier Roux is a physical chemist. He joined Saint-Gobain as vice president for research and development in 2005, following a distinguished scientific career.

Roux began his career at a CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) lab in Bordeaux, France, in 1980. After taking his PhD, he went to work in the United States for two years, first at Exxon’s laboratory in New Jersey, and then at the University of California from 1986 to 1988.

On his return to France he became, in 1990, research director at CNRS. As an expert in complex fluids, polymers, liquid crystals, colloids and interfaces, Roux has always alternated experimental and theoretical research. He became director of the Centre de Recherche Paul-Pascal in 1997, and later focused his work on cell biology. Meanwhile, to exploit the commercial potential of his discoveries, he also founded two start-ups, one in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and home consumer goods, the other in fluid measurement instruments.

Roux served as deputy scientific director at Rhône-Poulenc in 1998 and 1999, and became a member of Rhodia’s scientific and technology council in 1999. He is committed to public service, and sat on several scientific councils from 2000 to 2004. He chaired the technology transfer subcommittee of the technology R&D advisory committee for the Aquitaine region from 1998 to 2004, and served as vice-president of its steering committee.

He has received several awards, including a silver medal from CNRS in 1992; an award from Mergier-Bourdeix Science Academy in 1995; the applied physics award from the French Physics Society in 2002; and, in 2004, the Chaptal prize of Chemical Arts.

Roux holds 13 patents and has published more than 140 articles in international scientific journals. He has given more than 90 invited presentations at international meetings.

During my 25 years at CNRS, a public research organisation run like a university research group, I did fundamental research, managed a lab of 150 people, created a couple of start-ups and worked as a scientific advisor to two large companies. So I had more than ten years’ experience of working at the interface of public and private research before I gave up my tenured position to join Saint-Gobain.

What I learned is that to have a successful relationship between public and private research, you must pay close attention to the different purposes, motivations, approaches and personal relationships that apply in each type of organisation.

Partners with a purpose

Public and private research can work well together if each recognises the true purpose of the other. It’s vital that the private sector has to recognise that a good publication is much more important to a public lab than solving an immediate problem.

If we use the public system to solve industry’s problems, it will eventually cut off the flow of new science

This is the right attitude for public research institutes, which should only be judged on academic excellence. Their responsibility is to science, not industry. If we use the public system as a reservoir to solve industry’s problems, it will eventually dry up and kill industrial innovation by cutting off the flow of new science.

There’s been a lot of misunderstanding about the proper role of public research organisations. For example, when the UK’s public research labs began to run out of money at the end of the 1980s due to a shift in government priorities, some of them started offering problem-solving services to private companies to make up their funding. There are still public labs that offer this kind of short-term help, but they’re not concentrating on building knowledge over the long term.

There’s an argument that says we need a new form of mixed public/private research organisation. The private sector has had some excellent fundamental research labs, often established in the 1930s when academia appeared to be ignoring industry’s needs. There’s no reason for industry to have such labs now - universities are much better at recognising that industry presents interesting problems that can be used as tools for developing new knowledge. In France we have mixed labs, supported by both public and private funding. But they need to be like Janus, with one face looking like a university research lab, and the other looking like a lab where knowledge is being created to benefit industry. It’s an interesting, and challenging, way of connecting fundamental science to applications.

In practice, collaboration between public and private research can be difficult. If young researchers went into industry very soon after taking their degrees or doctorates, then after five or 10 years they can forget that a public lab is not a problem-solving service. It will have a reservoir of interesting problems that it uses to explore its understanding of a subject, and any problem presented by the private sector will just be added to that reservoir. The private sector has to find its own solutions, helped by the tools and fundamental insights created by public research’s exploration of the set of mutually relevant problems to which it contributed.

Those seeking collaborations should choose their public-sector research partners with care. Do you want to build long-term relationships with the best in your field to benefit from the new knowledge they will eventually generate, or will you be satisfied working with an academic version of a contract research lab?

Personal motivations

Public and private researchers are driven in different ways, particularly in terms of motivation and time-scales. In public research, people seek recognition through publications in leading journals and presentations at key conferences, so their motivation comes from satisfying their egos. Any recognition they get will come from people and organisations that are far away. Recognition may also be sparse: many public researchers have to survive on the hope that they can publish a few papers a year, which may or may not be well received.

Competition in academic research is also much tougher than in the private sector. At the very highest levels there may be five or 10 people world-wide who are masters of their subject and who compete on their ideas, results, and ability to progress. Very few can work at this level, so many public researchers face careers that offer limited recognition and reward and which may be tinged with disappointment.

In the private sector, on the other hand, motivation stems from the success of a team of people who have been devoted to a project or commercial outcome. Feedback and recognition will be local and immediate.

Time-scales are also very different. Public research works to loose time-scales, although researchers face daily competitive pressure. Private-sector research has very precise time-scales, and usually involves regular meetings with a lab boss to get feedback and check progress against clear milestones.

I believe that people are happier in private research than in public

To summarise, the rewards for research in the public sector stem from the individual, while in the private sector they stem from the group and the organisation. For this reason I think that a well-run private company offers a better career and better recognition for most research scientists than a public lab. I believe that, on average, people are happier in private research than in public. However, a public researcher benefits from a lot of freedom and, when successful, can develop a strong international recognition almost like a top athlete.

People and teams

The differing motivations of public and private researchers can lead to interesting management challenges. Take something basic, such as telling people what to do. In public research, hierarchy is much less important than in private companies. A public laboratory director is more like an enabler and administrator than the person in charge. They have power, but it’s power over very independent people. I couldn’t fire anyone at CNRS, for example, because they had tenure. But I could move them between labs if they were being difficult. I also had the power to restructure the organisation, but using it could be challenging. If I wanted to make changes, I had to convince those involved of their value, which could take a disproportionate amount of time. In the private sector, even if convincing people remains a priority, it is much easier - people will accept changes much more quickly, even if they disagree with them. Although trust between the employees and the hierarchy is a key issue for private companies, it’s not so effective in public institutions.

I think the best public/private partnerships emerge when the interface between the two types of organisations is a smooth continuum, rather than a sharp break. The key is to have people in your group with experience of both types of research.

I’ve found it best to have people from industry at the top of industrial research labs, so that they get the necessary recognition and respect from the organisation. Below that level, though, it is extremely useful to hire people from the public research sector for industrial research teams, in part because public research is so rigorous in seeking out the most able. I like to find people who have worked in public research organisations for five or 10 years and hire them before they can become disillusioned with their progress in public research. I can put them in a private-sector lab that is likely to be better organised than where they were, which offers more immediate recognition of their skills, and where we benefit from the network they bring. Moving to the private sector may also save them from the disappointment of waiting for recognition that would never have come had they continued in the public sector.

Conclusions

The best partnerships between private and public research occur when industry makes a long-term commitment to support world-leading public researchers in their quest for new knowledge relevant to industry’s needs. The reward for industry is building a strong store of knowledge and being able to hire good scientists to use it to develop new products. Understanding the differing purposes of each type of organisation, and the differing motivations and behaviours of the people working in them can go a long way towards enabling effective partnerships.

[EIRMA together with other organisations has developed the Responsible Partnering initiative, a voluntary programme and Handbook designed to help public research organisations and companies improve the effectiveness of their collaborative research and knowledge transfer activities. Its own guidelines on public/private research partnerships are available in the Handbook here.]

Didier Roux

Vice president of research, Saint-Gobain
Didier.Roux@saint-gobain.com

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