Collaborations between industry and universities in the field of informatics are associated with many challenges. In this talk, we describe our experiences in collaborating on various projects and the collaboration process we followed. To facilitate such collaborations, we have been working on a portal that provides services from academia to industry, which proved to be no easy task. This talk reports on our experiences and pitfalls and also aims to stimulate a discussion on how such collaborations can be better implemented.

1. 1
Industry-academia collaborations:
experiences and pitfalls
Roberto Confalonieri1),2)
, Andrea Janes2)
1)Università di Padova, Padova, Italy 2)Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen, Italy
12. November 2022

2. 2
Content
What is Technology Transfer?
State of the Art
The Technology Transfer Portal of the SDF
Conclusion and Future Developments

3. 3
Technology Transfer
– Technology transfer has gained a lot of interest in the last
years
– EU R&D founding policies promote industry-academic
collaborations
– Technology transfer is the process of transfer and
dissemination of in-situ academic developed technologies
to industrial organization
– Technology transfer includes many activities (patents,
spin-off companies, commissioned research)

4. 4
Technology Transfer
– Technology transfer is not easy to accomplish
– The various stakeholders speak different languages, have
different goals, and, therefore, they follow different
approaches to achieve their objectives
– One of the most challenging parts of technology transfer
activities is to inform industry about the availability of
academic results using an industry-friendly language

5. 5
Smart Data Factory
– The Smart Data Factory1
(SDF) is an applied research and
technology transfer unit of the Faculty of Computer
Science2
of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, located
at the NOI Technology Park3
.
– SDF focuses on fostering industry-academia
collaborations.
Co-design and co-develop
Mediate
Collect
experiences
1
https://smart.inf.unibz.it
2
https://www.inf.unibz.it
3
https://noi.bz.it

6. 6
Content
What is Technology Transfer?
State of the Art
The Technology Transfer Portal of the SDF
Conclusion and Future Developments

7. 7
State of the Art
– There exist many papers about technology transfer
models, strategies, or best practices, but none of them
discuss the possibility of such an exchange through
on-line portals or platforms.
– Technology Transfer and Innovation Models
– Crowdfunding platforms
– Technology Transfer Portals

8. 8
Technology Transfer and Innovation Models4
4
Gorschek, T., Wohlin, C., Garre, P., Larsson, S.: A Model for Technology
Transfer in Practice. IEEE So ware, Volume: 23, Issue: 6, Nov.-Dec. 2006

9. 9
Technology Transfer and Innovation Model of
the NOI Technology Park

10. 10
Crowdfunding platforms
– Crowdfunding platforms enable creators to gain attention
and raise money for their projects
– There exist various types of crowdfunding models:
– Kickstarter5, IndieGoGo6, etc. are the most known ones, but
there is also:
– Experiment7, a “platform for funding scientific discoveries.”
– The projects are organized into categories and described
using pictures, videos, the involved scientists, a description,
and the required budget
– “all-or-nothing funding platform” (credit cards are only
charged if a project reaches its funding target)
5
http://www.kickstarter.com
6
http://www.indiegogo.com
7
https://experiment.com/

11. 11
The Web site “experiment”

12. 12
Technology Transfer Portals
– The “technology offers” of the web sites of universities like
the Vienna University of Technology, the Graz University of
Technology, and Wageningen University
8
https://www.kit-technology.de/

13. 12
Technology Transfer Portals
– The “technology offers” of the web sites of universities like
the Vienna University of Technology, the Graz University of
Technology, and Wageningen University
– The KIT - Research to Business8
web site presents
technologies and collaboration offers by the Karlsruhe
Institute of Technology, Germany
– The website uses a language that addresses businesses
– Offers are grouped into categories and sub-categories (e.g.,
“Information” and “Automotive industry”)
– Offers are described using one or more pictures, the
description, categories, a contact person, related offers,
related patents, related dissertations, and other additional
material
– Offers can be downloaded or added to a watch list
8
https://www.kit-technology.de/

14. 13
KIT - Research to Business

15. 14
Content
What is Technology Transfer?
State of the Art
The Technology Transfer Portal of the SDF
Conclusion and Future Developments

16. 15
Structure
1. Offers and archive entries
2. Our Skills
3. Work with us
4. Team
5. Contact

17. 16
Technology Transfer Process of SDF

18. 17
Main page

19. 18
Offer entry

20. 19
Archive entry
Research project: "Collaborative Construction Management (COCkPiT)"
Save archive item Previous element Next element
Goal
The overall goal of this project is to develop methodologies and IT tools to better control construction process management.
Objectives
It consists of three objectives, for developing
1. Framework, methodology and tool to support collaborative process modeling.
2. Methodology and tool to support short-term scheduling.
3. Methodology and tool for real-time measurement of the progress on-site.
Topics
Process Modeling and Management
Applications
Industry 4.0
Contacts for this archive item
Werner Nutt ( werner.nutt@unibz.it, web site)
Werner Nutt is a full professor at the Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Find out more about him checking out his
website.
We have created a diagram that displays common keywords from articles written by Werner Nutt. This is often useful to see what the respective
researcher is doing: click here.
Elisa Marengo ( elisa.marengo@unibz.it, web site)
Elisa Marengo is a researcher with a fixed-term contract at the Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Find out more
about her checking out his website.
We have created a diagram that displays common keywords from articles written by Elisa Marengo. This is often useful to see what the respective
researcher is doing: click here.
Web site
http://cpm-construction.inf.unibz.it/index.html
Category
Computer architecture
Type of archive item
Research project
Smart Data Factory
Smart Data Factory
NOI Techpark Südtirol/Alto Adige
Offices A1.4.29d-e
Via Alessandro Volta 13A
39100 Bolzano (BZ)
Italy
smart@unibz.it
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Smart Data Factory Collaborative Construction Management (COCkPiT) Contact EN

21. 20
Collaboration Types

22. 21
Content
What is Technology Transfer?
State of the Art
The Technology Transfer Portal of the SDF
Conclusion and Future Developments

23. 22
Conclusion
– Research is not a “product” but it is a process
– The outcome is not always foreseeable
– Research requires collaboration because the team needs
to decide how to proceed when intermediate results are
available.
– Writing research proposals is difficult because one has to
imagine the future and explain the idea to external
reviewers without background.

24. 23
Thank you for your attention!