QinetiQ finds less is more

QuinetiQ is the privatised R&D arm of the UK Ministry of Defence

A select band of universities can look forward to more work from QinetiQ as the defence research and innovation company focuses its academic links on a small number of partnerships.

QinetiQ, the privatised R&D arm of the UK Ministry of Defence, has joined the ranks of businesses that have rationalised their links with academic research groups. Like Rolls Royce, BAE Systems and others, QinetiQ plans to concentrate on a much-reduced number of university partnerships.

The new way of working, says Sir John Chisholm, QinetiQ's CEO, is partly in response to the company's changing relationship with the Ministry of Defence. The increasingly commercial nature of QinetiQ's own work had changed the sort of R&D that it carries out. As a consequence, said Sir John, "our relationship with the universities has changed."

As DERA, the organisation had invested some £20 million a year, mostly in grants, to university researchers. As QinetiQ focused its R&D to support its own activities, its spending in universities declined to around £5 million a year.

 

Alison Hodge, University Partnerships Director at QinetiQ, explains that when QinetiQ separated from the MoD, it no longer received its annual "vote" for spending on internal and external R&D. Money spent in universities had to come out of the company's own budget.

 

Despite its falling spend on academic R&D, QinetiQ still had links with 90 academic institutions, albeit sometimes small amounts for short term courses, explains Hodge, who has spent the past two years developing the company's new approach. This is "not a long-term efficient way of doing business," Sir John told a high-powered event to launch the first of a series of university partnerships.

The company expects its university links to become even more important in the future. Sir John predicted that the company’s spending will more than double over the next few years. "Universities will play a larger part in the front end of our business."

The first partner universities are Bath, Cardiff, Imperial College London, Lancaster, Oxford, Southampton and Surrey. Hodge is quick to point out that "it is not an exclusive club. We are already talking to other universities." So far these are all in the UK, "but we hope to expand abroad in the not-too distant future," she explains.

QinetiQ’s relationships with universities are different from those of most large manufacturing companies, with their set R&D budgets, says Hodge. The company does not have a fixed research budget.

QinetiQ describes itself as "Europe's largest independent science and technology organisation" with a large percentage of is 11,500 staff being qualified scientists and engineers.

"QinetiQ sits between research and manufacturers," explains Hodge. It makes money by taking science and meeting the needs of its customers. Under its new partnerships, universities could play a more significant role in that process. They have the opportunity to partner with QinetiQ when it bids for contracts. For that to happen, says Hodge, the company has to be comfortable that it can work with the university researchers.

The partnerships will build up the long-term relationships that raise the comfort level. You have to build a relationship and understanding, says Hodge. "You have to know what a capability really means in a university."

How innovation works in physics

Sir John sees the initiative as part of an attempt to enhance the exploitation of the physical sciences. He believes that the innovation process in physical science is very different from that in the life sciences.

Biological innovation is heavily loaded towards the initial discovery, he explained. Much of the rest of the process of bringing ideas to market adds relatively little value to the original discovery. For example, in the pharmaceuticals sector, the biggest commercial area in the life sciences, devising production processes is essentially a trivial issue.

In the physical sciences, on the other hand, many people can have ideas that would achieve the same end result, but most of the innovation effort goes into creating working technology and devising manufacturing routes that can bring products to market.

While the UK is good at turning life science to profit it is less competent in commercialising the physical sciences. "Industries based on physics account for a larger proportion of gross domestic product than those based on the life sciences," said Sir John, "but the UK has been less successful in exploiting excellent research in, for instance, electronics than it has in the biosciences."