Towards the end of last year, I was delighted to host our annual event attended by representatives from Cambridge’s key business partners. Companies including AstraZeneca, GSK, Google, KPMG and Siemens gathered in Cambridge to think about why and how we work together and explore ways in which we can make our partnerships more successful in delivering our shared vision.
Why partnerships and why Cambridge?
Today, universities are measured by their impact on the world, through the technologies they create and the difference they make to lives and economies. At Cambridge we have an impressive track record of doing just that, changing the world in so many ways, from the jet engine to IVF, from monoclonal antibodies to Raspberry Pi.
But we can’t rest on our laurels: we need to carry on, doing more and doing better. To that end, we are developing a new innovation strategy, building on our past successes and setting out ambitious plans for the future. Collaborating closely with industry has a vital role to play in delivering those aspirations.
As one of our industry partners, you already know that Cambridge can offer you access to world-leading scientists, thinkers and emerging talent. But more than that, by working with the University you become a key part of our innovation ecosystem.
Cambridge is home to one of the world’s top innovation clusters and is the world leader, ahead of San Francisco, for science and technology intensity. It has one of the fastest-growing economies in England and has excellent connections to other innovation hotspots. With its ‘Golden Triangle’ partners, Oxford and London, it has created an ecosystem which contributes £110 billion to the economy annually and two million jobs.
Twenty-four unicorns have been born in Cambridge and we have more than 5,000 knowledge-intensive companies here, plus a strong spinout, start-up and investment culture. At the heart of all this innovation activity, our researchers are inspired not to just come up with new and interesting ideas, but to find ways to put those ideas into practice.
And we need the help of our industry partners to make that happen, whether by setting us seemingly impossible research problems, seeing the possibilities in our blue-sky thinking or helping us to develop the next generation of scientists and leaders.
However, while the rationale for partnerships is clear, bringing together large and complex organisations is not always straightforward. We started by asking some of our partners to share their perspectives on both the opportunities and challenges of academic-industry partnerships.
A challenge-driven approach: KPMG
First, we heard from Justine Andrew, Head of Education, Skills and Productivity at professional services firm, KPMG. A relatively new partner, KPMG doesn’t ‘do R&D’ in the way that many of Cambridge’s technology partners do. Instead, it came to Cambridge with an ambitious ask: could we help it re-wire its business around its people, putting environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities, innovation and employee mental wellbeing at the heart of its organisation.
This has led to a significant research programme aimed at supporting the mental wellbeing of KPMG staff, an ESG programme already delivered to around 50,000 staff and involvement in Cambridge’s Founders initiative, helping spinouts and startups scale their scientific breakthroughs.
A wide-ranging collaboration: Google
Hariprasad Radhakrishnan, Team Lead for UK Healthcare, Research & Higher Education at Google described Google’s 10-year partnership with Cambridge and the huge number of touchpoints across both organisations.
He highlighted that we recently signed a framework agreement to streamline research collaboration and that Google is the first funding partner for the University’s Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence (CHIA), a multidisciplinary initiative to develop AI that is grounded in human values and benefits humanity.
Another interesting dimension of the partnership is the joint role held by Zoubin Ghahramani who is both a VP of Research at Google DeepMind – and Professor of Information Engineering in the University’s Engineering Department. This kind of dual role can be helpful in developing partnerships that meet both partners’ needs.
Developing a talent pipeline: AstraZeneca
Our third panellist, Jacqui Hall, Head of Early Careers, BioPharma R&D at AstraZeneca, spoke about the company’s deep-rooted partnership with the University which has both deepened and broadened since it moved its R&D headquarters to Cambridge.
Jacqui described how developing talent is a key pillar of AstraZeneca’s drug discovery strategy. This has resulted in AstraZeneca funding more than 150 Cambridge PhD studentships and establishing multiple training and exchange programmes, ensuring a steady pipeline of research and clinical expertise. Playing an active part in the innovation ecosystem is also central to AstraZeneca’s strategy, demonstrated by its extensive mentoring programme for students, early-career researchers and new ventures, and its involvement in organisations such as Innovate Cambridge.
These three companies exemplify some of the different approaches to – and motivations for – partnering with Cambridge. But the purpose of our discussion was not just to celebrate success, important though that is. It was also to explore some of the barriers that can prevent us from realising our shared ambitions. The panellists also identified some of the challenges they have encountered, which we further explored through roundtable discussions (see below for a summary).
Challenge-driven collaboration
As well as thinking about how to optimise bilateral partnerships, we also wanted to consider how multiple organisations can come together with a sense of urgency to deliver innovations at pace and scale to address the grand challenges of our time.
We invited Tomas Coates Ulrichsen, Head of the Policy Evidence Unit for University Commercialisation and Innovation (UCI) to report back on a UIDP summit he had hosted earlier in the year, involving a wide range of industry partners, policymakers and US, UK and European universities. He inspired us to think about creating multi-organisational, multidisciplinary coalitions to address problems that are too complex for single organisations – or sectors – to tackle alone.
He shared insights from the conference as to what these coalitions will require, including:
- Strong leadership and effective storytelling to rally multiple partners around a common cause
- Breaking down complex issues into manageable problems
- Relaxed intellectual property arrangements to facilitate knowledge sharing
- Incentives for participation and creating new spaces that encourage collaboration
- Innovative funding models – and the agility to respond to emerging opportunities.
Key insights into building better partnerships: a summary of our discussions
Approach
- Start small to de-risk ambitious projects, but always keep your ‘north star’ in view to maintain momentum.
- Define success metrics at the outset and celebrate achievements.
Structures
- Establish a steering group to ensure the partnerships are meeting the strategic needs of both partners. Where partnerships are longstanding, interactions at every level can proliferate. The steering group can co-ordinate large numbers of activities in key areas to deliver maximum impact.
- Senior-level agreements must have buy-in from frontline researchers in both organisations.
- Strong account management with single points of contact on both sides is needed to achieve and maintain alignment.
- Engage legal, contracting and communications teams early to avoid roadblocks.
- Bringing senior leaders from industry into the University as ‘professors of practice’ can help to build mutual understanding and develop shared ambitions.
People and trust
- Partnerships require a lot of time and input from both sides: this needs to be an investment both partners are willing to make.
- Trust is key to a successful relationship. Be able to pivot when a project isn’t working and move onto the next one. The account manager role is key here – they must manage expectations, foster honest communication and handle emotions neutrally.
Contracting
- Clarify non-negotiables upfront and have dedicated champions from both sides to navigate challenges.
- Organisational cultures
- Manage differing expectations between academia and industry, especially around timelines. Set milestones and deliver on them.
- Both parties must compromise: industry should aim to be less transactional, while universities should strive for practical, impactful results.
- Build in mechanisms to flag issues before they escalate.
What can Cambridge do?
- Provide more training for academics collaborating with industry
- Establish more ‘professors of practice’ roles and encourage secondments between organisations.
- Convene more events to strengthen ties and spark serendipitous connections
- Showcase rising academic stars
- Use simpler contracts and pilot funding to kickstart collaborations
- Create more shared spaces for collaboration
There are some clear actions here for us, which we will report on at next year’s event. However, what I took away from the day was a reaffirmation both of the impressive achievements and huge potential of our strategic partnerships. By better aligning our efforts, by being more flexible in some areas and by investing in our supporting structures and activities, we can build on our successes and turn our shared ambitions into outcomes which can make a real difference to the world.
I look forward to continuing the conversation.
Diarmuid O’Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation, University of Cambridge
January 2025
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