Innovation Collaboration Models
By bringing together multidisciplinary expertise from research, industry, and public organizations to collaborate on innovation, ENVRIs can help drive the development and adoption of new technologies, services, and solutions to address pressing environmental challenges. However, we understand that facilitating this type of collaboration in practice is not always easy.
To support this, the following section outlines different types of collaboration models that can be adopted by ENVRIs for innovation. These have been categorized based on the type of innovation activities they would be most suitable for, i.e. relating to: Joint Research & Development, Contract Research, or Commercialization.
For each of the models, you can find information on what kind of partners it may be most appropriate for, for which purpose, and what type of agreement would need to be in place for each phase of the collaboration to effectively facilitate innovation.
Discover the Models
Joint R&D
Environmental research infrastructures collaborate with other research infrastructures, research performing organisations, the private sector or governmental agencies to co-develop technologies and solutions. This approach accelerates the translation of scientific discoveries into functional solutions, whether through improving existing technologies or creating new services tailored to environmental monitoring and research.
There have been three types of collaborations identified regarding Joint R&D:
- Intra-RIs co-development (bilateral): Joint R&D projects between RIs or associated RPOs. End-users could be other RIs, RPOs, industry or governmental agencies
- Industry-RIs co-development (bilateral): Joint R&D projects between an RI/RPO and Industry. End-users could be other RIs, RPOs, industry or governmental agencies
- Mixed partners co-development (multi-party): Multidisciplinary partnerships with multiple stakeholders are often necessary in resolving environmental challenges that might be beyond the capability of a single organization or sector. Diverse partners, including RIs, companies, governmental bodies, or non-profit organizations, jointly work to develop new technologies and services. End-users could more typically be governmental agencies, but in many cases, RIs and industry are also included.
All collaboration types may concern projects focused on:
- new technology or services development, starting from low TRL level to reach medium to high, or
- integration between several existing technologies, processes or services, starting from medium TRL to high.
Please refer to the table below for the relevant agreements that can help facilitate each different type of collaboration and the benefits for partners in engaging in them.
| Collaboration Models Matrix: Joint R&D | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Benefits for partners | Agreements to facilitate collaboration |
Contract Research
Innovation isn't just about technological development. It is about solving real-world challenges. Contract research between RIs and their industrial partners can tackle specific challenges that require tailored solutions.
The RI-industry relationship can follow two models in this context:
- Industry as a user: In this model, industry approaches an RI with a specific problem or innovation need that requires the specialized expertise, resources, or facilities only the RI can provide. Industry partners utilize the RI as a resource to meet specific research and development needs. Industry requests contract research projects with the RI to use its facilities to test prototypes, explore new technologies, and conduct both basic and applied research. This model enables the industry to tackle complex challenges or validate innovative products within the RI’s advanced experimental environment.
- Industry as a supplier: In this model, industry partners act as suppliers in response to specific technological needs identified by the RI. New cutting-edge solutions often originate from RIs seeking specialized components or services to support their unique scientific objectives. The RI initiates the collaboration, reaching out to an industry partner when it identifies a need or gap for a new technology or service that requires industry support to be developed, improved, scaled, validated or commercialized. This collaboration is often rooted in the RI’s expertise and preliminary R&D findings, where industry involvement is essential to increase TRL or deploy the technology at a commercial level. Instead of the standard procurement route, when there is a gap in the market for the required solution, contract research enables the industry to step-in to develop tailored solutions, with the input of the RI as a user. In this model, both partners share objectives for mutual benefit. For the RI, this means access to highly customized, advanced tools and components needed for their research. For the industry partner, it provides an opportunity to refine and potentially commercialize new products, advancing their market presence with technology developed through close collaboration with scientific experts.
By positioning the industry either as supplier or user within this contract research framework, specific research needs can be fulfilled, and the ENVRI innovation ecosystem can be strengthened through long-term, strategic collaborations between RIs and industry.
| Collaboration Models Matrix: Contract Research | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Benefits for partners | Agreements to facilitate collaboration |
Commercialisation
Establishing collaboration for the purposes of commercialization can be crucial for ENVRIs to be able to translate research output into real-world solutions, create new revenue streams as well as enhance their socio-economic impact.
Below are three key pathways that ENVRIs could explore for commercialization.
- Service Provision: Providing services to various partners in industry, government, and research, including access to scientific data and analytics, use of facilities for product testing, and knowledge transfer through consulting.
- Licensing: Licensing intellectual property (IP), such as technology, methodologies, or software developed by a research infrastructure, to external partners for use in commercial applications.
- Spin-Off: Establishing spin-off companies that take over the go-to-market and commercialization of technologies or other results developed by an RI or RI network members with RI contribution.
More details on the process, model agreements and templates to be used for each one of these commercialization pathways can be found in the Technology Transfer section of the Innovation Resources Toolbox.