Innovation Gateway Slides

what is innovation and why is it important at NV ?

“An innovation is something that is new, useful and utilized ( in norwegian: ny, nyttig, nyttiggjort!) and the process of innovation is going from something that is new, identifying it’s usefulness and bringing it to use in society. So essentially the process of getting knowledge in use.

At NV our research has potential to be world changing. Our innovations activities are part of the process of innovation, but that doesn’t mean that you as an academic have to take responsibility for every stage in the process. We can think of it like a relay race, you can hand the baton on for the next stage but there are still some thing you need to know to facilitate getting the knowledge you generate «in use».

We don’t necessarily know in advance what research will lead to innovation. Sometimes we expect our research to produce innovation, or knowledge that should be brought directly to societal use (for example working in SFI’s or on Missions or Societal Challenges in Horizon Europe) but all research can lead to innovation or opportunities for use in society, even if it wasn’t foreseen, so it’s important to be familiar with the basic concepts to avoid problems down the line.”

By Catherine Taylor Nordgård, Vice Dean for innovation, NV faculty

Innovation is one of three core tasks in Strategy 2018-2025 for the Faculty of Natural Sciences (NV)

 

Questions to innovation mindsett Duplicate 1

The Academic Innovation Landscape

Research work and  funding is often geared towards meeting societal challenges, funders want to know how your proposed project will make a positive impact and research council national evaluations include impact cases as standard. So a basic understanding of the landscape of innovation in academia is an important part of the modern academic toolbox.

 

 

Quick link to practical roles

Knowledge Valorization

Improving the valorization of research results is key to reduce the innovation gap, and respond to the real needs of society.

Quick checkpoints to streamline research and innovation practice in process for valorization of knowledge.

 

 

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Intellectual Property (IP) and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) In Research and Innovation

 

NTNU has a responsibility to ensure that the knowledge we produce benefits society and that includes effective innovation and knowledge management through generation of IP, clarifying IPR and IPR protection. The strategy for management and protection of IP is part of the “Measures to Maximise Impact”. To realize successful exploitation, IP takes an essential role in the entire life cycle of knowledge generation and development. For more from NTNU Innovation and Knowledge Management web site

And specifically about NTNU’s IPR policy and NTNU’s guidelines for IPR , as well as  Why IPR policy – NTNU

 

Essential points about Open Science (Open Access)

  • Open Science (Open Access) implies that research data shall be deposited as soon as possible.
  • The dissemination of results can be postposed to allow the appropriate protection of results beforehand.
  • Works in Open Access are usually protected by copyright, but other IP rights may protect the underlying content. A publication made available as Open Access, may also have the method described protected by a patent and/or design rights, and software code protected by copyright. Be ware there is no inherent conflict between IP protection and openness

To gain confidence in the application of IP within the context of Open Science , EU IP Helpdesk made training material on IP & Open Science, providing:

  • interpretations and demonstration on how the IP system aligns with the core principles of Open Science.
  • examples showcasing how the sharing of IP, data and publications can be as open as possible while maintaining the option for closure when necessary.

 

To ensure that results created at NTNU through the use of NTNU’s resources or public funds are used in society, including commercialization, new research and teaching, "all Results, IP, Data and Physical Material with a potential for commercial utilization must be reported by the employee (creator) to the university through the employee’s line manager and to NTNU TTO (Submit your idea to TTO)." from NTNU’s IPR policy.

 

Even if ownership rights of IP are transferred to NTNU, the authors always retain the moral rights to their own literary, scientific or artistic work, that is, the right to claim authorship (the right of attribution) and the right to object to any distortion or modification of a work (the right of integrity).

 

Visit European IP Helpdesk for details: user friendly learning resources for knowledge of IP and IPR in the context of research and innovation at basic, intermediate and advanced levels.

Some selected topics:

IP for Future and emerging technologies: examples on how analysis of patenting activity can help radical technology breakthrough in context of EU future and emerging technologies (FET) or Pathfinder (similar to Technological Convergence Related to Enabling Technologies). Learn from EU IP Helpdesk webinar.

The protection of biotech inventions by appropriate Intellectual Property Rights is extremely important due to the close link between such innovations and the development of a product. Learning from EU IP Helpdesk webinar.

Maximising the impact of Horison Europe projects through effective communication, dissemination and exploitation activities: This eLearning module clarifies the terminology by illustrating the differences between the three concepts and providing an overview on key practical steps and central aspects related to IP and innovation management. Learning from EU IP Helpdesk webinar.

Licensing is a transfer of rights from a licensor, typically the owner of an IPR, to a licensee.

It is an effective means for licensor to control use or diffusion of IP. Knowledge (or IPR) often need to be shared with others in context of collaborative research and open innovation. Licensing strategies can be employed to balance various goals in joint efforts, in particular, to manage protected knowledge that is developed and shared in collaborative innovation.

The core element in licensing is to the scope and extent of the rights granted to the licensee, as well as any limitations on those rights. Here are typical examples used in collaborative innovation for specifying extent and limitations via licensing:

  • Time (effective period)
  • Use only for research or education
  • Exclusive /non-exclusive rights
  • Operation conditions (defined obligations to use the IP)
  • Regional/geographical territory
  • Field of use
  • Access and usage rights
  • Right to commercialization

An overview of key aspects in the field of Intellectual Property licensing available on EU IP Helpdesk

 

 


Simple project

Integrating Collaboration, Innovation and Value Creation in Projects

 

 

Sorting out and reaching out stakeholder for:

  • Deepen inside understanding to problem and help with identifying unmet needs / unanswered questions
  • Allow you to meet potential partners
  • Provide access to new opportunities, data, resources, technology and knowledge
  • Bring new inspiration to your own work
  • Project kick off
  • Result collection and management
    • Keep in mind when capturing outputs under collaboration
      • Which partners contributed (and what) – to determine owners: Background IP and Project IP
      • The use of IP (results from the work) is relative stand-alone independent of use of other IP
      • Any agreed strategies for protecting results (Project IP)
      • Any plan or agreement of IP management and exploitation
      • Any relevant confidentiality agreements needed or signed in advance
      • Any publications or public disclosure already made?
      • Individual personal role (students, employee, visitors, the advisory board, etc) in IP creation
    • Open science and IP – as open as possible as closed as neccessary. This requires continual evaluation of «value» and innovation potential. Be ware of notification obligation in NTNU IPR policy
    • Open data and FAIR
  • Knowledge mobilisation and transfer

Services Innovation at NV Duplicate 1

Collaboration Creates Innovation

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Network & Forum

  • Framework Collaboration
  • Forum for Industrial Cooperation
  • Guest/adjunct professors from outside academics
  • Industrial/Public Sector PhD Scheme
  • Gemini Centres at NV

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Public Sector

To increase societal impact and benefit

  • Helping generation of knowledge relevant and applicable to public actors and their users.
  • Providing knowledge and innovation for supporting the public entity’s R&D and innovation strategy.

Our stories: interaction with the public sector at NV

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Industry/Academics

Through SFI, FME centre or other projects

  • Contribute to increased competitiveness of industry
  • Provides competent candidates, knowledge and technology innovation.

Our stories: collaboration across academics and industries at NV

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New Business

Employees and students help to identify new business opportunities and inventions as well as innovative improvements in existing processes.

Our stories: new business ideas created from research at NV

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Check points in practice  

 

During the process for generation and development of IPs, some points need to be checked depending on the role of a person in the project and nature of the project.

 

Prior to idea generation/During establishment of project consept

Idea validation/During the project

Creating more values/Beyond the project

Opportunities and resource to further exploit the results

Students in the project, typically for summer job in NTNU labs, specialization and master thesis project in the last year.

If you are student and considering to start new business upon IP clarification, please check practical help and support resources in NTNU to start a new business.

 

Career and innovation

 

Diverse Career Paths

It is increasingly recognized that competencies related to innovation and societal engagement are also highly relevant in academia, leading to a greater diversity of career paths. This is also reflected in the assessment of academic activities and research proposals as well as in the framework for assessment of academic carrier by CoARA and NOR-CAM.

There are also both local, national and European possibilities for funding innovation activities as part of your academic career. Involvement in innovation project and developing these competencies can positively contribute to an academic career and a greater overlap in skills for careers both within and outside academia promotes more career mobility.

In addition to the implementation of CoARA (in Norwegian), incentives are made to stimulate more innovation initiatives. With purpose to encourage individual engagement of innovation activities, NTNU provides NTNU Discovery as financial support to the development, verification and quality assurance of good and commercially viable business ideas.

Both nationally and internationally, initiatives have been launched to change how academic activities are assessed in academic careers and in competition for research funding. The Research Council of Norway (RCN) increasingly requires that the social benefits of research work shall be addressed as important element in proposing ideas and planning activities. In addition to increasing support for cross-sectional collaboration, the following are particularly innovation focused:

  • Qualification Project

    to support the investigation activities for translating research results and strengthening the commercial potential.

  • Proof-of-concept-project

    To support concept verification and increase the commercial application of results from publicly funded research projects. There is no specific requirement for high Technology readiness level (TRL).

  • STUD-ENT from Innovation Norway

    To support student (Ph.d can be eligible) with new start-up idea.

  • ERC Proof of Concept

    Frontier research often generates radically new ideas that drive innovation and business inventiveness, and tackle societal challenges. The ERC puts particular emphasis on the frontiers of science, scholarship, and engineering. ERC funding may also enable new ways of working in the scientific world, with the potential to create breakthrough results and facilitate commercial and social innovation potential of funded research. The ERC Proof of Concept Grants aim at facilitating exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of ERC funded research.

  • Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

    Innovation as important element has been addressed:

    • MSCA Staff Exchanges To promote innovative international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration in research and innovation through exchanging staff and sharing knowledge and ideas at all stages of the innovation chain.
    • MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships: to enhance the creative and innovative potential of researchers holding a PhD. The scheme also encourages researchers to work on research and innovation projects in the non-academic sector.
    • MSCA Doctoral Networks: to train creative, entrepreneurial, innovative and resilient doctoral candidates, able to face current and future challenges and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit.
       
  • Pillar 3: Open Innovation

    Supporting activities which have potential to drive innovation and establish new business. Two types: “Open” with no-predefined area or with specific themes

    • European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder

      Supports potential radical breakthrough of new technologies at early phase of development (TRL 1-4). Two types: Pathfinder “Open” with no-predefined area; Pathfinder “Challenges” with specific themes.

    • European Innovation Council (EIC) Transition

      Support activities for the maturation and validation of novel technology in the lab and in relevant application environments as well as for the development of a business case and (business) model towards the innovation’s future commercialization. Only for the results regenerated under Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe. It is expected to demonstrated intended application (TRL 5/6) and higher market readiness.

    • European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator

      Funding to scale up innovations building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’). Encourage start-ups and SMEs.

  • COST Innovators Grant (CIG)

    The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) is a funding organisation for the creation of research networks, called COST Actions. These networks offer an open space for collaboration among scientists across Europe (and beyond) and thereby give impetus to research advancements and innovation.

    The COST Innovators Grant (CIG) aims to enhance the pace and success of research breakthroughs and as such, offers ending Actions the possibility to create additional impact during the year after the end of the Action. CIGs have a duration of 12 months and benefit from the same networking activities available to COST Actions.

Contact Resources in NV

Contact Resource

 

NV Faculty

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Marianne Bjordal Havnes
Head of Section for the Research and Innovation Section
marianne.b.havnes@ntnu.no
+47-73591836
Li He
Innovation advisor, Innovation Manager in the Department of Chemical Engineering
li.he@ntnu.no
+4747617499
Catherine Taylor Nordgård
Vice dean for Innovation, NV faculty / Associate Professor IBT
catherine.t.nordgard@ntnu.no
+47-73412409

TTO contact

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