SME Pathways to Engaging in Higher Education Research
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 hours ago
- 13 min read
David has been designing and implementing collaborative research programs with UK and international institutions for a decade, representing universities, corporations, and government agencies to create research projects that create cutting-edge research outputs for industry, government, and SMEs.
The history of the toothpaste tube is surprisingly interesting, and yet suggests a common form. Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, toothpaste came delivered in glass jars with little spoons so you could scoop the paste onto your brush (to prevent multiple brushes from dipping into the jar). The jar supplier to Johnson and Johnson also sold squeezable metal tubes made of tin or lead to be used for holding artists’ paints. JCJ saw the potential there, and the toothpaste tube was born. Over the next century, the emergence of new materials, such as plastics, changed the tubes, as did a wartime metal shortage. After WW II, materials continued to evolve, resulting in plastic tubes, pump systems, and recyclable containers. Science, politics, cultural, and ecological concerns all affected the toothpaste tube as we know it today, as those factors affect all businesses.
Your business needs to evolve when such changes occur, if not before; markets change; supply chains expand, contract and diverge; parallel industries alter their behaviour affecting yours; changes to political and economic conditions all demand that you approach your business in new ways. Change is not always a function of what you can imagine or undertake on your own. Serious, well-planned, and risk-appropriate change more often than not relies on specialist research.
In my first article for Brainz, I discussed how and why small and medium enterprises SMEs can and should make use of the most powerful research resource on the planet: Higher Education institutions. In today’s article, I’d like to discuss what the Higher Education Research (HER) market looks like- what is ‘on the shelves’ of that market. In a recent study by the University of Cambridge, industrial, and especially SME participation in HER is often limited by two factors: SMEs not knowing what Universities can offer to a company looking for research help, and Universities not understanding SME research needs. In our discussion today, I’d like to attack that first problem and explain what and how HER offers research solutions for SME problems.
HER and the charitable remit
HER is not like any other form of research, as it both defines and delivers discoveries in a manner different from other SME options. We should thus start by defining what ‘research’ is, and this is easiest to do in the context of scientific, technological, engineering and maths research (STEM). For the purposes of an SME, research can mean simply learning something unfamiliar in more detail. HER research, on the other hand, is an institutional concept based on a single economic reality: most universities are charities and thus are limited in what they can do to retain that privileged tax status.
In the US, UK, and other Western countries, a university’s charitable remit is to advance education and research for the public benefit. This means they have a legal obligation to act in the public interest, going beyond just providing education to also contributing to research, knowledge dissemination, and wider societal well-being. This means that universities are not simply an alternative to commercial research, such as hiring a consultant. When you or I think of research, we imagine learning something that is new to us. University research must do more: it must discover knowledge that is new for everyone, and they must make those discoveries public.
In exchange for creating new public knowledge, universities conducting HER are allowed various financial benefits: they may receive government support, collect philanthropic funding, and receive tax benefits. This is the public exchange for that new knowledge.
The key to identifying what such ‘research’ is, then, is to define what ‘new knowledge’ is. To better understand what this means, it’s helpful to look at what is now known as the Frascati Manual. The Frascati attempted to evaluate research activities on the basis of utility, that is, how soon a research activity could have real-world impact.
The Frascati definition of research
Research and experimental development (RCD) comprises creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humankind, culture, and society, and to devise new applications of available knowledge. Thus, Frascati ordered research and development into three activities: basic research, applied research and experimental development.
Basic research: Is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any application or use in view.
Applied research: Is also an original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective.
Experimental development: Is systematic work, drawing on existing knowledge gained from research and/or practical experience, which is directed to producing new materials, products or devices, to installing new processes, systems, and services, or to improving substantially those already produced or installed.
RCD must be distinguished from a wide range of activities relating to RCD with a scientific and technological basis; such activities are excluded from the definition of RCD unless they are carried out solely or primarily for RCD purposes. Pure RCD activities should have an element of novelty and the resolution of scientific and/or technological uncertainty, i.e., when the solution to a problem is not readily apparent to someone familiar with the basic stock of common knowledge and techniques for the area concerned.
As you can see from these basic descriptions, the main metric used in the Frascati scale is technological readiness, or how soon a research output will be ready for commercialization. This is often referred to as the TRL (technological readiness level). The more practical a piece of research is, then, the higher the TRL and the less likely it is to create new knowledge and be an apt topic for HER. The Frascati scale measures from 1 to 10, with each level being a little closer to ‘market-ready’. HER tries to focus on projects that are TRL 5/6 or less, where concepts may be tested for applications in environments that are closer to realistic, as opposed to laboratory settings. In other words, the process of applied research.
To look at an example, take the development of a new pharmaceutical. Discovery of a new molecule or compound with neurological implications is clearly fundamental research, TRL1 or 2. As the chemical material is developed into a drug, it moves up in TRL: early testing for proof-of-concept would be TRL3; TRL 4 would describe the transition to the prototyping stage, with early clinical trials another step along. As the product moved towards being on a pharmacist’s shelf, so would the TRL increase.
Research at the under-TRL 6 level probably qualifies as a charitable endeavour. That is, a University justifies its charitable status if it conducts that level of fundamental research. That is not to say that university experts can’t or don’t do TRL 7-10 research, but such projects may be conducted as consultancies and not HER, and will not benefit from the charitable institution’s tax benefits and other aspects; because they don’t discover fundamental concepts, they don’t contribute new knowledge; rather, they tend to use current knowledge in different ways. They would be classified as commercial research, with the attendant pricing and tax implications that come with any consultancy.
HER: Who, what and when
Let us say that you have identified a problem in your business that could benefit from research. On a Sunday morning, you read in the technology section about a professor who is working on a new, small-form laser-based 3D printer manufacturing process that uses the laser to create objects in specific gaseous environments. Doing your own 3D printing has always seemed out of reach, but the article tickles your interest. You currently buy components from a specialist using 3D printing techniques but would like to lower your costs and be able to develop some parts faster, perhaps adding bespoke capabilities to your production process. Having your own in-house 3D printing capability might be a solution. Having discovered a possible source of helpful knowledge, then, how do you acquire research on the topic that is helpful, affordable and meets your planning needs?
HER relies on a strongly hierarchical culture. At the very first rung of the ladder reside undergraduate students. They are seldom, if ever, involved in research as they are engaged in acquiring an education and lack the tools to do original work. Once they have achieved their degrees, however, those better students from the undergraduate pool may advance to do original research at increasingly higher levels of proficiency.
Thus, there are three tiers of researchers to consider when you start to look for the right research project. From the top down: 1) professors or established research professionals; (2) post-doctoral researchers and/or early career researchers; (3) PhD students, or researchers in training. Each level provides certain advantages to an SME looking for help. Let’s look at the advantages of each:
Established researchers
A professor or established career researcher at the university level is someone who probably lectures at a university and has a laboratory or her own. The lab may vary in size and employ and serve as a home to many other researchers. They are leaders in their field, publish regularly, and can be expected to produce useful results on any given project in short order. If they were scientists outside the university context, they would command daily consulting fees of £1200 to £2000 per day or more. Within their laboratories, established researchers supervise the work of up-and-coming researchers, such as postdoctoral researchers and PhD candidates, and the work of those junior researchers benefits from the supervisor’s expert knowledge and guidance.
Postdoctoral researchers
Postdoctoral researchers are the people who are on their way to becoming established researchers. They are the brightest possible people, having won seats in research labs over literally hundreds of candidates. They are fully trained and fully capable of providing outstanding research results. If they were acting as independent scientists, they would command consulting fees of £600 or more per day.
They differ from established researchers in that they do not have the broader experience that allows for efficiency. On the other hand, postdocs guided by their supervisors benefit from such experience second-hand.
PhD students
PhD students are some of the best minds available. They have survived brutal competition to become students under their supervising Established Researchers and are generally working towards developing specialties of their own. Rather than working on discreet, temporal research projects, PhD students work for three or four years to develop a thesis; it is a requirement of the thesis that it contribute something new and novel to the field, so the work is cutting edge. The student’s thesis is supervised by both Established Researchers and Postdocs and so benefits from the community of knowledge in the lab.
As you can see from these actors, the research solution you are looking for will dictate both who does the work and the cost of the research. If you are looking for a solution this year, then you will generally want to create a project using a postdoc, or possibly even a consultancy with a professor. If you can wait for the result or have more theoretical goals, then using a newer postdoc or a PhD student may offer a better alternative.
Universities often offer another alternative, research by a student pursuing a master’s degree. A UK master’s degree is usually a one-year course and requires the production of a written thesis, so in that regard it is similar to a project undertaken by a PhD student. The main difference is that the course lasts a single year, and thus the thesis is the equivalent of a chapter of a full PhD thesis. For some research projects, the Master’s in Research work is sufficient and will produce effective outputs in a short period of time. Topics in the social sciences, business administration, and non-STEM subject areas are highly suited to a master’s project. Students are supervised by the same professors that look over PhD and postdoctoral research, and thus benefit from the same levels of expertise and experience. They’re just looking at smaller questions.
Pricing research
Studentships
It is difficult to state what costs of any specific piece of research might cost, but all HER research is generally set on the basis of actual costs. In light of their privileged financial status, universities do not price research on a retail basis. As the public already supports them through the charitable remit, universities basically charge for research at cost. This is one of the huge advantages to working with HER. Depending on the type of research project, university costs are extremely low relative to the projects involved.
For example, if your research project was one that (1) was not urgent, but could be usefully conducted over 2-4 years, a PhD student would be a good candidate to undertake the project. A PhD student’s education costs around £40,000 a year at a private institution in the United Kingdom, which would include all fees and costs (tuition, lab fees, materials, etc.) and the student’s cost of living while studying. By sponsoring a studentship, you would pay for a four-year course, and the student would write their thesis addressing your research question. During that same time, the student would receive the education necessary to continue on in professional research.
Postdoctoral research
It only makes sense that the same project, more focused or perhaps more urgent, would be entrusted to a postdoc, who would be able to generate results much faster than a student. Of course, that expertise comes at a cost; where sponsoring a full studentship would cost £160,000 over four years, a single year of postdoctoral research will cost the same. Then again, that researcher is not in the middle of getting an education but already has the tools and techniques necessary to do that job well. Answers will come more quickly and efficiently.
Established researchers
It is not possible in all but the exceptional case that an Established Researcher would personally take on a research project. The researcher has a plethora of obligations that do not allow her to focus on a single client project: professors have students to supervise, lectures to deliver, departmental responsibilities and other tasks that fill a normal day. Yet, when you look at sponsoring HER with a professor, you expect to have that researcher involved.
Thus, the expense of hiring an Established Researcher takes two paths. If your company sponsors research by a PhD student, the Established Researcher will supervise that work, guide the student along the path to discovery, provide advice on methods and approaches, help the student avoid making mistakes that others have made in the past, etc. The supervising professor does not do the work directly but is intimately involved in the project, and the sponsor gains all of that experience and expertise in the process.
Because the Established Researcher is employed to teach and guide students, universities almost universally do not charge for the supervisor’s involvement in studentship research. This is one of the huge advantages of sponsoring a PhD studentship; you get the professor’s knowledge and guidance for free.
That is not the case, however, in projects in which the Established Researcher works with a Post-Doc. Because there is no teaching function, no supervision of a graduate thesis, etc., universities charge for the professor’s involvement in Post-doc research, and this is usually a simple matter of allocating a percentage of a professor’s salary to the project. This will show up as a line item in the project costing, usually measured in tenths of the professor’s annual salary. This allows a professor to handle his other duties in the department and still oversee the research project at hand.
Non-researcher costs
The researcher's expenses are part of the overall cost of a project. Depending on the nature and field of the project, the total research bill will include costs for materials, facilities, travel, technicians, and any other material element of the project. As you may imagine, the cost of STEM research can be a good deal greater than a research project in the humanities or social sciences, which commonly won’t include laboratory use, materials, etc., although it may include things like travel expenses.
The good news is that these costs are a shadow of what the actual cost would be for an SME to engage in the same sort of research on its own or by using a commercial consultancy.
Universities command enormous resources that are well beyond the means of most any SME: a single electron microscope in a Material Science department at a major university costs millions of dollars. If your research problem requires the use of such equipment, you would have to acquire that equipment for the project, probably for a single use, and be left with a large, second-hand device at the end of the project. Similarly, university economies of scale keep research costs well below what would be possible in a commercial setting.
Universities in the UK and most other countries are also limited in what they can charge for research. This is often overlooked in negotiations for research funding, but the fact is that universities charge research at cost and make no profit in such endeavours. This is consistent with the role universities fill in providing public benefits: universities receive public funding in large quantities, and also tax benefits for doing so. In return, they do not run their research functions as profit centres. Indeed, on average, a university may run a calculated loss of anywhere from 4 to 10 percent on research projects.
Where research projects do not fit that public-service profile, they are often distributed to commercial affiliates of the university, which operate essentially like private consultancies. Such projects are priced at commercial rates and are considerably more expensive than the HER options we have discussed above, but there are projects which warrant that approach.
The HER bargain
If universities do not include profit in the cost of HER, it is fair to ask what they get out of sponsored research. HER sponsors provide an important component of the research and education process that should be detailed so that SMEs understand the process and maintain a successful posture in negotiating a research project.
It is not overstating things to say that academic researchers are not primarily motivated by personal wealth. Established Researchers are well-paid, to be sure, and many of them demonstrate a knack for business that allows them to operate in a commercial sense as well. At heart, though, academic researchers fill that role because they are motivated by the discovery process and the creation of knowledge in their field. Most of them could have gone into commercial research and made more money, but would have been saddled by the limitations of;
(1) coming up with practical solutions to more mundane research questions; (2) having a much narrower scope of research questions to work on; (3) balancing pure intellectual inquiry with commercial pragmatism.
Academic researchers can pick and choose their topics, work without the pressure of meeting commercial goals, and work with other people who are at the peak of their field. Academic freedom is a beautiful thing, and most researchers are in the office because of that freedom. Many also like the process of teaching and developing your researchers, making a concrete contribution to the future of their fields.
Universities are annually rated according to a variety of criteria, but certainly one of the most prominent is the amount of publishing a university does. Academic research journals are the lifeblood of HER, and without sponsored research projects, universities like MIT, Cambridge, Stanford, and others would not be able to publish at all; sponsored research allows universities to make the discoveries that shape the future. Thus, universities happily engage in HER at essentially cost in order to play that esteemed role in the way society and industry are shaped.
Next steps
Hopefully, the discussion above outlines some of the mechanics of how to get involved in HER, what a project would cost, and who would do the research your SME needs. Certainly, you will have noticed inconsistencies in that discussion, and mainly because HER does not look like or function in a way comparable to commercial research. In my next article, I’ll address some of those questions and lay out in more detail the process of putting together an HER research project and negotiating the details of such a project for your business.
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Read more from David Allan Feller
David Allan Feller, Higher Education Research Specialist
Combining a career as a US commercial attorney with a career-changing PhD in the Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge, David Allan Feller has spearheaded collaborative research projects for Cambridge since leaving academic research in 2016. Filling the gap between sponsors who need innovative solutions to grow their businesses and researchers whose focused expertise can create those solutions, David has provided the University of Cambridge, international corporations, and government agencies with structures that maximise sponsor return-on-investment and deliver the best outputs that higher education researchers can offer.
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