Industry Partnerships at the University of Toronto

Cristina H. Amon

Dean, School of Applied Science & Engineering, University of Toronto

Industry is more interested in interactive development cooperation with students, because they are future employees of industry enterprises. Because of this, we should create more opportunities for students in experiential learning. We should provide opportunities for school-enterprise cooperation, so that students may enter the enterprise work in the future. We should keep a forward-looking view on industrial development, bring more opportunities to the future of the industry through research, truly discover new technologies and methods, and apply them in new practice. When teachers from different backgrounds around the world cooperate in the industry, the most comprehensive partnership can be established. In addition, a complete ecosystem is also very important, which is actually a way to achieve industrial development.

Industry-University-Research Cooperation from the Perspective of Enterprises

Norbert Luetke-Entrup

Head of Technology and Innovation Management, Siemens

The report expounds how a company's laboratory drives innovation and how innovation ecosystem further pushes the innovative development. In addition to scientific research and education, the university also has the functions of transforming the scientific research results into practical applications. Today, many companies and companies' R&D centers chose to cooperate with universities. The report also explains what the future engineers are like. What is the curriculum for the engineer training? The company expects an education system with a diverse curriculum and engineering graduates equipped with multi-disciplinary knowledge. Finally, Industry-Academy-Research cooperation requires in-depth cooperation between the universities and the enterprises.

Models of Industry-Academia Cooperation

Chua Kee Chaing

Dean of School of Engineering，National University of Singapore

Why is industry-academia cooperation important? Industry-academia cooperation allows academia to work on important problems and translate its research outputs to useful societal outcomes, joint training of students prepare them better for the real world and rapid technological changes will drive demands for continual education and training. The presentation explained the models for cooperation in research, which includes corporate lab with major company, industry consortium, joint research project (shared IP) and contract research project (company owns IP). The presentation also explained the models for cooperation in education, which includes internship and co-op programs, industry participation in curriculum design and development, guest lectures and adjunct appointments and joint supervision of student research/projects. Last but not least, the presentation pointed out some Challenges to Surmount, they are industry and academia tend to operate on different timelines, academics are increasingly getting more removed from industry, there may still be a TRL gap to bridge and broad-based training vs being productive on day one.

How to Develop Industry-Academia Cooperation?

Leif Kari

Chair and Dean, School of Engineering Sciences, Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) is a leading technical and international university creating knowledge and competence for a sustainable future. KTH has creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship integral to all study programmes, which includs classes and seminars in smaller groups, students are encouraged to solve problems together in groups, often in close collaboration with industry, encouraging innovative ideas and entrepreneurial spirit amongst students, and latest cutting edge teaching and technological equipment. Largest number of global companies (per capita) is very important for industry-academia cooperation. KTH also has established for long-term collaboration for mutual development, yearly management dialogue on future challenges and high level meetings all partners. Collaboration that creates mobility between KTH and industry comes from partner to KTH, such as adjunct professor, affiliated professor, affiliated faculty, industry-employed doctoral students. From KTH to partner, such as industry-employed doctoral students, affiliated experts, degree projects and student jobs.

From Academia to Industry

Lai Chih-Huang

Dean of College of Engineering, National Tsing Hua University

Introduced the organization for university-industry collaboration and mainly introduced OCIC (Operations Center for Industry Collaboration). Three work scopes of OCIC are industrial joint research, IP life cycle management and innovative startup. Industrial joint research includes search for academy and industry collaboration, connect industry, alumni with campus, and spin-in & spin-off. IP life cycle management at OCIC includes IP management and tech transfer, develop self-sustain mechanism to support long term research. And innovative startup at OCIC means transform technology into product and nurture talent to make social impact. There are five big research centers are best practice in campus, MTK-NTHU Joint Research Center, TSMC-NTHU Joint Research Center, HIWIN-NTHU Joint Research Center, LiteOn-NTHU Joint Research Center and Unimicron-NTHU Joint Research Center. There are two buildings bridge Lab (Tsing Hua Lab) to Start-up (Incubation Center). The jobs of Innovative incubator include talent nurturing: continuing education, joint-research collaboration: Mini league of key technologies and innovation nurturing: angel funds, alumni fund and space. There is a Win-Win Strategy with a Mini Technology League and a Major Industry-Academic Alliance in National Tsing Hua University.

University-Industry Collaboration for

 Full-Cycle Multi-Level-Interaction Cross-Region Higher Education

Jiang Lan

Dean of School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology

Introduced the background and needs of close university-industry collaboration for higher education. Then explained in detail about University-Industry Collaboration for Full-Cycle Multi-Level-Interaction Cross-Region Higher Education. Introduced what is the structure of university-industry collaboration supporting education outcomes through its All-faculty full-cycle guided system. How its final evaluation and outcome display for full-cycle guided innovation design, including industry visiting, manufacturing, industry-based B.S. thesis, industry-provided lectures. As well as industry-supported student innovation activities: student-dominated innovations supported by advisors & industry-provided technology, funding, material, and equipment. Finally, demonstrated Outcomes of University-Industry Collaboration. For example, 143 awards in national/international student competitions in the past 5 years, forming a batch of exchange and cooperation bases domestically and overseas. According to KPI, the school was ranked 1st out of 20 schools at BIT in the past 3 years, among which teaching performance was also ranked 1st each year, right after graduation, 69% of undergraduates pursued M.S. or Ph.D. degrees within 5 years after graduation, 80% of graduates received significant promotions.