At the 2023 edition of the Autumn Forum we discussed the university-company relationship

The eight INESC TEC Autumn Forum took place on November 21, this time with slightly different characteristics – since, instead of being thematic (as the previous ones were, in general), it sought to analyse institutional and contextual issues: the theme was “Innovation Ecosystems — the role of interface entities”.

As expressed in the title of the article that José Carlos Caldeira wrote in Público, it is inevitable that we return “Still (and always) [to] the university-company relationship”. Universities and research units produce science and technology results with economic potential, but there are difficulties in achieving a useful dialogue with companies likely to use them. And we all know that this difficulty is bidirectional. In this regard, people often talk about the “valley of death”. Well, what the interface units seek to do is to build bridges over this valley, which allow a fluid convergence of what one side can offer and what the other side needs or seeks.

Today, in Portugal, there are many units with some of these characteristics, coming from different thematic areas — as was evident in the first panel of the afternoon — and with different types: associated laboratories, CTIs, technology centres, CoLABs, etc. etc. Perhaps too many types and too many units, for a limited amount of human resources, which leads to them being dispersed across many tasks and making it difficult to achieve, in many cases, the appropriate critical mass. There is a risk of everything becoming less dense and very shallow. But these are other wars…

In our case, INESC TEC, is, as you will acknowledge, a unit that performs several of these tasks. It is no coincidence that we are simultaneously an R&D unit, an Associated Laboratory, and a CTI. We have maintained, since our inception (formally, in 1998), the heritage we brought from the original INESC, which dates to 1980.

Well, this multiplicity of objectives, tasks and perspectives sometimes creates (and many of you will have experienced this) difficulties: we must publish, we must earn money, we must have an impact on the economic and social fabric; we are (personally and institutionally) called to respond in several directions. In addition to being institutionally evaluated by FCT, we listen to and welcome the experience and guidelines provided to us by both the Scientific Advisory Board and the Business Advisory Board.

Sometimes, it feels like we want to square the circle. But it is also true that this conundrum allows us, within ourselves, to share knowledge, as well as facilitating the exchange of information, ideas and experiences between those further up or down the value chain – or, in our language, between those who position themselves in lower or higher TRL. This is what has differentiated us and allowed us to be recognized both on the national R&D side, and for the impact we have had on many sectors, ranging from traditional industry to energy, from communications to logistics, from data science to public policies, etc.

But let’s go back to the Forum: whoever was there (and the room was packed with many people besides the “Inesquianos”), will make their own judgment and synthesis. For those who did not attend and wish to watch the institutional video, I leave a global (and personal) appreciation: it’s worth listening to how José Manuel Mendonça posed the problem and how João Claro achieved the difficult mission of, more than summarising, emphasising the most relevant things we had heard. In between, many interventions were relevant and pertinent, but I cannot resist highlighting what José Carlos Caldeira, Philip Larrue, Maria Mota and Alexandra Vilela said. For me, they were the ones that particularly caught my attention.

Now it is time to prepare the issue of Science & Society that was announced and start thinking about the next Forum. Next year, we will be here again.

By Pedro Guedes de Oliveira, Consultant to the Chairperson