Partnerships
Research Partnerships
Structuring and running research relationships with universities, research centres and industry consortia - and making them produce something.
01
The record
Planned and implemented a programme of joint ventures and consortia with major universities and research centres, with a combined budget exceeding $100 million. Alongside that, the KOC-USC graduate programme, designed as the foundation of a future Centre of Excellence for the Kuwait energy sector.
Both required the same thing: a structure that survives the departure of the people who negotiated it.
02
Why research partnerships underdeliver
The usual pattern is an agreement signed at executive level with genuine enthusiasm on both sides, followed by three years of polite reporting and no transfer of capability into the operating business.
The cause is almost always that no one inside the operating company was made accountable for absorbing the output. The partnership has a sponsor and a budget, but no recipient.
03
Structuring the relationship
Partner selection comes after the capability question, not before. Naming the capability the business needs tells you which institutions can actually supply it, and prevents partnership decisions being made on reputation alone.
The agreement then has to settle intellectual property, publication rights, secondment of staff in both directions, and what happens to the work if either side withdraws. Secondment is the part most often dropped, and the part that does most of the actual transfer.
04
Governance and value capture
A research consortium needs a governance rhythm that matches the research, not the quarterly reporting cycle of the sponsoring company. Reviewing a five-year programme every three months produces pressure to show progress rather than progress.
Value capture is assessed the same way research portfolios are: at cluster level, against a capability the business committed to needing, with the cost of the whole programme set against what the organisation can now do that it could not before.
Related projects
Origination of the R&T Group
Created the Research & Technology function for Kuwait's energy industry from a standing start - structure, mandate, funding model and first portfolio - and served as its first Manager.
KOC-USC Graduate Programme
Designed a graduate programme linking KOC with USC, intended as the foundation of a future Centre of Excellence for the Kuwait energy sector.
University & R&D Centre Joint Ventures
Planned and implemented a programme of joint ventures and consortia with major universities and research centres, with a combined budget exceeding $100 million.