EDITORIAL ARTICLE

Industrial &Applied Research: Mapping for future
by
Ahmad Raza

Research and development institute is generally funded by the govt. with appreciable support from the industry. Unfortunately, in Pakistan neither government nor industry have paid any attention on this essentially important field. The function of university dept., or research institutes is to support, first of all, local industry in order to solve their production and development problems. This support is strongly linked with highly qualified & trained persons in the relevant field .The question arises as to why mutual cooperation between industry and research institute or department is necessary. The answer is that solving many problems today requires specialists and special costly equipment and a single department can hardly keep up with the state of technology in every field, a fact which dictates cooperation.An attempt is made here to highlight the methodology of mutual cooperation between the university department /institute and industry.

The industry usually determines the research focal point. For Pakistan, institutes, where research is being conducted, including university department should involve:

· Increase in innovative capabilities.
· Increase in production, flexibility &system reliability.
· Protecting health & environment.

Proximity to industry has its advantages for applied research institutes; industry's demand for dealing with its problems and help in eliminating problems or dealing with complaints can easily result in the institutes work being submerged. However, the industry simultaneously demands creativity, innovations, future oriented strategies (planning) and the transfer of know-how. Institute or department should have freedom to carry out basic research. Apart from the govt., industry should also cooperate with the university department for research projects.

Applied research has become very expensive and without the active support of industry, an institute can hardly continue to pursue active research. Close cooperation between industry and department is necessary for this reason alone. Collaboration with industry sounds good, but is not altogether easy to achieve as this is a long-term job requiring a great deal of perseverance on both sides. The question arises as to what are the prerequisites for a successful cooperation. Incentives should include:

· A lack of technically equipped and conceptually strong persons who have capability in the industrial research (Qualified technical persons like MScs and PhDs.)
· Provision of state-of-art work technology.
· Sufficient development activities.
· Specialist & expensive equipment available for the research institute or department.
Prerequisites
· Problem identification, costs & timetable acceptable to both partners.
· Experienced scientific personnel with specialized know-how relevant to the project.
· Company management should also acquire relevant personnel for the team & release them from routine job.
· Confidence and assurance that operating data &company related project results will be kept secret.

Advantages for industry include, access to special know-how over a limited period. Secondly, use of necessary equipment & apparatus, which is financed by the govt. or by industrialized countries. Advantages for university department or research institute include: cost saving, financial safeguard and equipment & machinery made available by industry for department.

Indirect advantages include: Department will foster industry oriented research, institutes will profit from industry know-how with improved database. Good contacts with industry with a number of research projects. The research and development leads to a marketable products, which motivates the research personnel. Close cooperation with industry is therefore of great advantage to both sides. In several countries the governments play an important role in subsidizing industrial research and this has been instrumental in various developments in different industrial sectors like textiles. Some countries have maintained R&D funding as a %age of sales.

Technological advantages are essential to competitiveness and organizations with well funded R&D programs have positive impact on competition (particularly multinational who have strong faith in R&D and its positive impact on company's development).

Summing up, there is a definite need to strengthen our R&D base, otherwise we shall no longer remain competitive and ultimately loose world market (particularly with reference to 2005).

It is the scandalous ignorance mainly by industry that they have not focussed on R&D and due to this reason they are not in the position to compete in the international markets. Another reason is low or inferior quality with higher production cost. I would suggest that every industrial unit should have its R&D dept. run by experienced and qualified persons, it is also suggested that EPB may consider imposing export restrictions on those products which are not backed by strong R&D. This will help eliminating production problems with better and economical production.