Supporting Thailand 4.0 with the 2nd Annual Innovation Forum

With the theme of “Discovery through collaboration: driving innovation through academic and industry partnerships”, Clarivate Analytics organized its second annual Innovation Forum in Bangkok on September 14, 2017, as a platform to help Thailand’s research & innovation community uncover new ideas and ways to collaborate successfully.

 

For the first time, Clarivate co-hosted this Forum with a Thai government agency, National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), and an established association, Thailand Centre of Excellence for Life Sciences (TCELS). The executive vice president of NSTDA & CEO of TCELS delivered the opening address in the morning. The full day event attracted almost 90 delegates with speakers and attendees from a wide spectrum of academia, government departments and corporations.

 

Key takeaways from the presentations:

  • The role of leaders is very important in bridging the boundary and fostering stronger ties between business and research
  • A good, long-term partnership between academia and industry is about sharing risk and accountability, and not only benefits
  • Three key pillars of a successful collaboration:
    1. Identify common area of interests
    2. Allocate shared resources and budget properly
    3. State the IP ownership and benefits clearly in the agreement and contract
  • While there is no right or wrong way to collaborate, it helps to have a system in place to ease the process of collaboration and innovation

 

Besides presentations from various speakers, we moderated a 45-minute panel session with a distinguished panel of leading innovators in the region comprised of SCG, PTT Global Chemical and King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonbury, to discuss “the art and science of a successful collaboration between academia & industry”. The panel discussed 3 questions:

  1. What is your main motivation for seeking academic/industry collaboration?
  2. How would you describe an ideal collaboration partner for your organization?
  3. How open innovation affects collaboration patterns?

One strong point that was discussed was the need to seek honest and trustworthy partners with the same mindset. For example, a failed partnership happened when a university did not meet tight deadlines given by its industry partner. Both parties need to be honest and clear with each other in terms of their expectations in order to establish a good partnership and continue their collaboration in the future.

 

Click here to view the speakers’ slides

Watch this short animation on the importance of academic and industry partnership

See event photos