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13.1: An Introduction to Research and Development (R&D)

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Learning Objectives

• Know what constitutes research and development (R&D).
• Understand the importance of R&D to corporations.
• Recognize the role government plays in R&D.

Research and development (R&D) refers to two intertwined processes of research (to identify new knowledge and ideas) and development (turning the ideas into tangible products or processes). Companies undertake R&D in order to develop new products, services, or procedures that will help them grow and expand their operations. Corporate R&D began in the United States with Thomas Edison and the Edison General Electric Company he founded in 1890 (which is today’s GE). Edison is credited with 1,093 patents, but it’s actually his invention of the corporate R&D lab that made all those other inventions possible.Andrea Meyer, “High-Value Innovation: Innovating the Management of Innovation,” Working Knowledge (blog), August 20, 2009, accessed February 22, 2011, http://workingknowledge.com/blog/?p=594 . Edison was the first to bring management discipline to R&D, which enabled a much more powerful method of invention by systematically harnessing the talent of many individuals. Edison’s 1,093 patents had less to do with individual genius and more to do with management genius: creating and managing an R&D lab that could efficiently and effectively crank out new inventions. For fifty years following the early twentieth century, GE was awarded more patents than any other firm in America.Gary Hamel, “The Why, What and How of Management Innovation,” Harvard Business Review , February 2006, accessed February 24, 2011, http://hbr.org/2006/02/the-why-what-and-how-of-management-innovation/ar/1 .

Edison is known as an inventor, but he was also a great innovator. Here’s the difference: an invention brings an idea into tangible reality by embodying it as a product or system. An innovation converts a new idea into revenues and profits. Inventors can get patents on original ideas, but those inventions may not make money. For an invention to become an innovation, people must be willing to buy it in high enough numbers that the firm benefits from making it.A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan, The Game-Changer (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2008), 21.

Edison wanted his lab to be a commercial success. “Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility and utility is success,”A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan, The Game-Changer (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2008), 25. Edison said. Edison’s lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, was an applied research lab, which is a lab that develops and commercializes its research findings. As defined by the National Science Foundation, applied research is “systematic study to gain knowledge or understanding necessary to determine the means by which a recognized and specific need may be met.”National Science Foundation, “Definitions of Research and Development,” Office of Management and Budget Circular A-11, accessed March 5, 2011, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/randdef/fedgov.cfm . In contrast, basic research advances the knowledge of science without an explicit, anticipated commercial outcome.

History and Importance

From Edison’s lab onward, companies learned that a systematic approach to research could provide big competitive advantages. Companies could not only invent new products, but they could also turn those inventions into innovations that launched whole new industries. For example, the radio, wireless communications, and television industry grew out of early-twentieth-century research by General Electric and American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T, which founded Bell Labs).

The heyday of American R&D labs came in the 1950s and early 1960s, with corporate institutions like Bell Labs, RCA labs, IBM’s research centers, and government institutions such as NASA and DARPA. These labs funded both basic and applied research, giving birth to the transistor, long-distance TV transmission, photovoltaic solar cells, the UNIX operating system, and cellular telephony, each of which led to the creation of not just hundreds of products but whole industries and millions of jobs.Adrian Slywotzky, “How Science Can Create Millions of New Jobs,” BusinessWeek , September 7, 2009, accessed May 11, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_36/b4145036678131.htm . DARPA’s creation of the Internet (known at its inception as ARPAnet) and Xerox PARC’s Ethernet and graphical-user interface (GUI) laid the foundations for the PC revolution.Adrian Slywotzky, “How Science Can Create Millions of New Jobs,” BusinessWeek , September 7, 2009, accessed May 11, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_36/b4145036678131.htm .

Companies invest in R&D to gain a pipeline of new products. For a high-tech company like Apple, it means coming up with new types of products (e.g., the iPad) as well as newer and better versions of its existing computers and iPhones. For a pharmaceutical company, it means coming out with new drugs to treat diseases. Different parts of the world have different diseases or different forms of known diseases. For example, diabetes in China has a different molecular structure than diabetes elsewhere in the world, and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly’s new R&D center in Shanghai will focus on this disease variant.“2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast,” R&D Magazine , December 2010, accessed February 27, 2011, www.battelle.org/aboutus/rd/2011.pdf . Even companies that sell only services benefit from innovation and developing new services. For example, MasterCard Global Service started providing customers with emergency cash advances, directions to nearby ATMs, and emergency card replacements.Lance Bettencourt, Service Innovation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010), 99.

Innovation also includes new product and service combinations. For example, heavy-equipment manufacturer John Deere created a product and service combination by equipping a GPS into one of its tractors. The GPS keeps the tractor on a parallel path, even under hands-free operation, and keeps the tractor with only a two-centimeter overlap of those parallel lines. This innovation helps a farmer increase the yield of the field and complete passes over the field in the tractor more quickly. The innovation also helps reduce fuel, seed, and chemical costs because there is little overlap and waste of the successive parallel passes.Lance Bettencourt, Service Innovation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010), 110.

Did You Know?

Appliance maker Whirlpool has made innovation a strategic priority in order to stay competitive. Whirlpool has an innovation pipeline that currently numbers close to 1,000 new products. On average, Whirlpool introduces one hundred new products to the market each year. “Every month we report pipeline size measured by estimated sales, and our goal this year is $4 billion,” said Moises Norena, director of global innovation at Whirlpool. With Whirlpool’s 2008 revenue totaling $18.9 billion, that means roughly 20 percent of sales would be from new products.Jessie Scanlon, “How Whirlpool Puts New Ideas through the Wringer,” BusinessWeek , August 3, 2009, accessed January 17, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2009/id2009083_452757.htm .

Not only do companies benefit from investing in R&D, but the nation’s economy benefits as well, as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Robert Solow discovered. Solow showed mathematically that, in the long run, growth in gross national product per worker is due more to technological progress than to mere capital investment. Solow won a Nobel Prize for his research, and investment in corporate R&D labs grew.

Although R&D has its roots in national interests, it has become globalized. Most US and European Fortune 1000 companies have R&D centers in Asia.“2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast,” R&D Magazine , December 2010, accessed February 27, 2011, www.battelle.org/aboutus/rd/2011.pdf . You’ll see the reasons for the globalization of R&D in Section 13.3 .

The Role of Government

Governments have played a large role in the inception of R&D, mainly to fund research for military applications for war efforts. Today, governments still play a big role in innovation because of their ability to fund R&D. A government can fund R&D directly, by offering grants to universities and research centers or by offering contracts to corporations for performing research in a specific area.

Governments can also provide tax incentives for companies that invest in R&D. Countries vary in the tax incentives that they give to corporations that invest in R&D. By giving corporations a tax credit when they invest in R&D, governments encourage corporations to invest in R&D in their countries. For example, Australia gave a 125 percent tax deduction for R&D expenses. The Australian government’s website noted, “It’s little surprise then, that many companies from around the world are choosing to locate their R&D facilities in Australia.” The government also pointed out that “50 percent of the most innovative companies in Australia are foreign-based.”Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century (U.S.), Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (U.S.), Rising Above the Gathering Storm (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007), 195.

Finally, governments can promote innovation through investments in infrastructure that will support new technology and by committing to buy the new technology. China is doing this in a big way, and it is thus influencing the course of many companies around the world. Since 2000, China has had a policy in place “to encourage tech transfer from abroad and to force foreign companies to transfer their R&D operations to China in exchange for access to China’s large volume markets,” reported R&D Magazine in its 2010 review of global R&D.“2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast,” R&D Magazine , December 2010, accessed February 27, 2011, www.battelle.org/aboutus/rd/2011.pdf . For example, any automobile manufacturer that wants to sell cars in China must enter into a partnership with a Chinese company. As a result, General Motors (GM), Daimler, Hyundai, Volkswagen (VW), and Toyota have all formed joint ventures with Chinese companies. General Motors and Volkswagen, for example, have both formed joint ventures with the Chinese company Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), even though SAIC also sells cars under its own brand.Brian Dumaine, “China Charges into Electric Cars,” Fortune , November 1, 2010, 140. The Chinese government made another strategic decision influencing innovation in the automobile industry. Because no Chinese company is a leader in internal combustion engines, the government decided to leapfrog the technology and focus on becoming a leader in electric cars.Bill Russo, Tao Ke, Edward Tse, and Bill Peng, China’s Next Revolution: Transforming The Global Auto Industry , Booz & Company report, 2010, accessed February 27, 2011, www.booz.com/media/file/China’s_Next_Revolution_en.pdf . “Beijing has pledged that it will do whatever it takes to help the Chinese car industry take the lead in electric vehicles,” notes industry watcher Brian Dumaine. Brian Dumaine, “China Charges into Electric Cars,” Fortune , November 1, 2010, 140. That includes allocating $8 billion in R&D funds as well as another $10 billion in infrastructure (e.g., installing charging stations).Gordon Orr, “Unleashing Innovation in China,” McKinsey Quarterly , January 2011, accessed January 2, 2011, www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Innovation/Unleashing_innovation_in_China_2725 . The government will also subsidize the purchase of electric cars by consumers and has committed to buying electric cars for government fleets, thus guaranteeing that there will be buyers for the new electric vehicles that companies invent and develop.

Another role of government is to set high targets that require innovation. In the 1960s, the US Apollo space program launched by President John F. Kennedy inspired US corporations to work toward putting a man on the moon. The government’s investments in the Apollo program sped up the development of computer and communications technology and also led to innovations in fuel cells, water purification, freeze-drying food, and digital image processing now used in medical products for CAT scans and MRIs.Adrian Slywotzky, “How Science Can Create Millions of New Jobs,” BusinessWeek , September 7, 2009, accessed May 11, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_36/b4145036678131.htm . Today, government policies coming from the European Union mandate ambitious environmental targets, such as carbon-neutral fuels and energy, which are driving global R&D to achieve environmental goals the way the Apollo program drove R&D in the 1960s.Martin Grueber and Tim Studt, “A Battelle Perspective on Investing in International R&D,” R&D Magazine , December 22, 2009, http://www.rdmag.com/Featured-Articles/2009/12/Global-Funding-Forecast-A-Battelle-Perspective-International-R-D .

After the 1990s, US investment in R&D declined, especially in basic research. Governments in other countries, however, continue to invest. New government-corporate partnerships are developing around the world. IBM, which for years closely guarded its R&D labs (even IBM employees were required to have special badges to enter the R&D area), is now setting up “collaboratories” around the world. These collaboratories are partnerships between IBM researchers and outside experts from government, universities, and even other companies. “The world is our lab now,” says John E. Kelly III, director of IBM Research.Steve Hamm, “How Big Blue Is Forging Cutting-edge Partnerships around the World,” BusinessWeek , August 27, 2009, accessed January 2, 2010, http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/09_36/b4145040683083.htm . IBM has deals for six future collaboratories in China, Ireland, Taiwan, Switzerland, India, and Saudi Arabia.

The reason for the collaboratory strategy is to share R&D costs—IBM’s partners must share 50 percent of the funding costs, which means that together the partners can participate in a large-scale effort that they’d be hard pressed to fund on their own. An example is IBM’s research partnership with the state-funded Swiss university ETH Zurich. The two are building a $70 million semiconductor lab for nanotech research with the goal of identifying a replacement for the current semiconductor-switch technology.Steve Hamm, “How Big Blue Is Forging Cutting-Edge Partnerships around the World,” BusinessWeek , August 27, 2009, accessed January 2, 2010, http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/09_36/b4145040683083.htm . Such a breakthrough could harken the creation of a whole new industry.

Of all the countries in the world, the United States remains the largest investor in R&D. One-third of all spending on R&D comes from the United States. Just one government agency—the Department of Defense—provides more funding than all the nations of the world except China and Japan. Nonetheless, other countries are increasing the amounts of money they spend on R&D. Their governments are funding R&D at higher levels and are giving more attractive tax incentives to firms that spend on R&D.

Governments can also play a big role in the protection of intellectual property rights, as you’ll see in Section 13.2 .

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• R&D refers to two intertwined processes of research (to identify new facts and ideas) and development (turning the ideas into tangible products and services.) Companies undertake R&D to get a pipeline of new products. Breakthrough innovations can create whole new industries, which can provide thousands of jobs.
• Invention is the creation of a new idea embodied in a product or process, while innovation takes that new idea and commercializes it in a way that enables a company to generate revenue from it.
• Government support of R&D plays a significant role in innovation. It has been generally accepted that it’s desirable to encourage R&D for reasons of economic growth as well as national security. This has resulted in massive support from public funds for many sorts of laboratories. Governments influence R&D not only by providing direct funding but also by providing tax incentives to companies that invest in R&D. Governments also stimulate innovation through supporting institutions such as education and providing reliable infrastructure.

(AACSB: Reflective Thinking, Analytical Skills)

• What benefits does a company get by investing in R&D?
• Why do organizations make a distinction between basic research and applied research?
• Describe three ways in which government can influence R&D.

Research and Development 

Research and development are the processes businesses follow to develop and introduce new products and improve existing services.  

Home > Research Glossary > Research and Development

What is research and development? 

Research and development (R&D) refers to the activities that businesses engage in to: 

• Develop and introduce new products and services or
• Innovate and improve on existing products and services 

R&D can be an invaluable tool for building and enhancing your business. It involves conducting a thorough investigation into your industry, your competitors, and your customers and uncovering the data and insights that are most important to your company.  

Armed with this information, you can be more strategic and better informed for meeting the needs of both your customers and your organization. So, finding this type of accurate, complete information in a timely fashion is essential to making smarter, more impactful business decisions. 

Why are data and insights important for your R&D strategy  

Data and the insights you draw from that data are critical to any R&D strategy. They help you: 

• Paint a more complete picture of the industry landscape, of a competitor, or of a particular individual
• Identify existing or emerging trends
• Unlock new business opportunities
• Build successful strategies so you can confidently make the right decisions for your organization
• Mitigate market disruptions and be risk resilient 

What’s more, data provides crucial insights into the factors influencing your business not just today, but also well into the future. Equipped with this knowledge, you’re in a much stronger position to create long-term value for your customers, markets, and relationships.  

What kind of data do you need for your R&D strategy  

No one can dispute that the Internet is an amazing tool. With it, we have at our fingertips immediate access to seemingly immeasurable amounts of free data – facts, statistics, and insights. But the Internet also comes with its limitations and hazards, especially when it comes to important research. Some challenges of using only the open web to conduct research include: 

• Questionable sources
• Outdated information
• Fake news or misinformation
• Inconvenient paywalls or other research dead ends
• Information gaps or, conversely, content overload 

In today's information-on-demand age, traditional search engines and general online research just won’t suffice for a robust R&D strategy. You need a smarter, more efficient approach, one that: 

• Avoids these internet obstacles
• Takes your research beyond the one-dimensional and draws from wide-ranging, first-rate sources
• Indexes and filters the research, so you’re getting only the data that’s most important to your organization
• Turns that data into actionable insights that strengthen your decision-making and help you achieve your business objectives 

So, it’s not about just any data – it’s about the right data. Trusted, well-vetted, and comprehensive information is critical for robust R&D. That means knowing where to get such valuable data and having the research tools in place to deliver it are key to developing a successful R&D strategy. 

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research and development

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Building an R&D strategy for modern times

The global investment in research and development (R&D) is staggering. In 2019 alone, organizations around the world spent $2.3 trillion on R&D—the equivalent of roughly 2 percent of global GDP—about half of which came from industry and the remainder from governments and academic institutions. What’s more, that annual investment has been growing at approximately 4 percent per year over the past decade. 1 2.3 trillion on purchasing-power-parity basis; 2019 global R&D funding forecast , Supplement, R&D Magazine, March 2019, rdworldonline.com.

While the pharmaceutical sector garners much attention due to its high R&D spending as a percentage of revenues, a comparison based on industry profits shows that several industries, ranging from high tech to automotive to consumer, are putting more than 20 percent of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) back into innovation research (Exhibit 1).

What do organizations expect to get in return? At the core, they hope their R&D investments yield the critical technology from which they can develop new products, services, and business models. But for R&D to deliver genuine value, its role must be woven centrally into the organization’s mission. R&D should help to both deliver and shape corporate strategy, so that it develops differentiated offerings for the company’s priority markets and reveals strategic options, highlighting promising ways to reposition the business through new platforms and disruptive breakthroughs.

Yet many enterprises lack an R&D strategy that has the necessary clarity, agility, and conviction to realize the organization’s aspirations. Instead of serving as the company’s innovation engine, R&D ends up isolated from corporate priorities, disconnected from market developments, and out of sync with the speed of business. Amid a growing gap in performance  between those that innovate successfully and those that do not, companies wishing to get ahead and stay ahead of competitors need a robust R&D strategy that makes the most of their innovation investments. Building such a strategy takes three steps: understanding the challenges that often work as barriers to R&D success, choosing the right ingredients for your strategy, and then pressure testing it before enacting it.

Overcoming the barriers to successful R&D

The first step to building an R&D strategy is to understand the four main challenges that modern R&D organizations face:

Innovation cycles are accelerating. The growing reliance on software and the availability of simulation and automation technologies have caused the cost of experimentation to plummet while raising R&D throughput. The pace of corporate innovation is further spurred by the increasing emergence of broadly applicable technologies, such as digital and biotech, from outside the walls of leading industry players.

But incumbent corporations are only one part of the equation. The trillion dollars a year that companies spend on R&D is matched by the public sector. Well-funded start-ups, meanwhile, are developing and rapidly scaling innovations that often threaten to upset established business models or steer industry growth into new areas. Add increasing investor scrutiny of research spending, and the result is rising pressure on R&D leaders to quickly show results for their efforts.

R&D lacks connection to the customer. The R&D group tends to be isolated from the rest of the organization. The complexity of its activities and its specialized lexicon make it difficult for others to understand what the R&D function really does. That sense of working inside a “black box” often exists even within the R&D organization. During a meeting of one large company’s R&D leaders, a significant portion of the discussion focused on simply getting everyone up to speed on what the various divisions were doing, let alone connecting those efforts to the company’s broader goals.

Given the challenges R&D faces in collaborating with other functions, going one step further and connecting with customers becomes all the more difficult. While many organizations pay lip service to customer-centric development, their R&D groups rarely get the opportunity to test products directly with end users. This frequently results in market-back product development that relies on a game of telephone via many intermediaries about what the customers want and need.

Projects have few accountability metrics. R&D groups in most sectors lack effective mechanisms to measure and communicate progress; the pharmaceutical industry, with its standard pipeline for new therapeutics that provides well-understood metrics of progress and valuation implications, is the exception, not the rule. When failure is explained away as experimentation and success is described in terms of patents, rather than profits, corporate leaders find it hard to quantify R&D’s contribution.

Yet proven metrics exist  to effectively measure progress and outcomes. A common challenge we observe at R&D organizations, ranging from automotive to chemical companies, is how to value the contribution of a single component that is a building block of multiple products. One specialty-chemicals company faced this challenge in determining the value of an ingredient it used in its complex formulations. It created categorizations to help develop initial business cases and enable long-term tracking. This allowed pragmatic investment decisions at the start of projects and helped determine the value created after their completion.

Even with outcomes clearly measured, the often-lengthy period between initial investment and finished product can obscure the R&D organization’s performance. Yet, this too can be effectively managed by tracking the overall value and development progress of the pipeline so that the organization can react and, potentially, promptly reorient both the portfolio and individual projects within it.

Incremental projects get priority. Our research indicates that incremental projects account for more than half of an average company’s R&D investment, even though bold bets and aggressive reallocation  of the innovation portfolio deliver higher rates of success. Organizations tend to favor “safe” projects with near-term returns—such as those emerging out of customer requests—that in many cases do little more than maintain existing market share. One consumer-goods company, for example, divided the R&D budget among its business units, whose leaders then used the money to meet their short-term targets rather than the company’s longer-term differentiation and growth objectives.

Focusing innovation solely around the core business may enable a company to coast for a while—until the industry suddenly passes it by. A mindset that views risk as something to be avoided rather than managed can be unwittingly reinforced by how the business case is measured. Transformational projects at one company faced a higher internal-rate-of-return hurdle than incremental R&D, even after the probability of success had been factored into their valuation, reducing their chances of securing funding and tilting the pipeline toward initiatives close to the core.

As organizations mature, innovation-driven growth becomes increasingly important, as their traditional means of organic growth, such as geographic expansion and entry into untapped market segments, diminish. To succeed, they need to develop R&D strategies equipped for the modern era that treat R&D not as a cost center but as the growth engine it can become.

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Choosing the ingredients of a winning r&d strategy.

Given R&D’s role as the innovation driver that advances the corporate agenda, its guiding strategy needs to link board-level priorities with the technologies that are the organization’s focus (Exhibit 2). The R&D strategy must provide clarity and commitment to three central elements: what we want to deliver, what we need to deliver it, and how we will deliver it.

What we want to deliver. To understand what a company wants to and can deliver, the R&D, commercial, and corporate-strategy functions need to collaborate closely, with commercial and corporate-strategy teams anchoring the R&D team on the company’s priorities and the R&D team revealing what is possible. The R&D strategy and the corporate strategy must be in sync while answering questions such as the following: At the highest level, what are the company’s goals? Which of these will require R&D in order to be realized? In short, what is the R&D organization’s purpose?

Bringing the two strategies into alignment is not as easy as it may seem. In some companies, what passes for corporate strategy is merely a five-year business plan. In others, the corporate strategy is detailed but covers only three to five years—too short a time horizon to guide R&D, especially in industries such as pharma or semiconductors where the product-development cycle is much longer than that. To get this first step right, corporate-strategy leaders should actively engage with R&D. That means providing clarity where it is lacking and incorporating R&D feedback that may illuminate opportunities, such as new technologies that unlock growth adjacencies for the company or enable completely new business models.

Secondly, the R&D and commercial functions need to align on core battlegrounds and solutions. Chief technology officers want to be close to and shape the market by delivering innovative solutions that define new levels of customer expectations. Aligning R&D strategy provides a powerful forum for identifying those opportunities by forcing conversations about customer needs and possible solutions that, in many companies, occur only rarely. Just as with the corporate strategy alignment, the commercial and R&D teams need to clearly articulate their aspirations by asking questions such as the following: Which markets will make or break us as a company? What does a winning product or service look like for customers?

When defining these essential battlegrounds, companies should not feel bound by conventional market definitions based on product groups, geographies, or customer segments. One agricultural player instead defined its markets by the challenges customers faced that its solutions could address. For example, drought resistance was a key battleground no matter where in the world it occurred. That framing clarified the R&D–commercial strategy link: if an R&D project could improve drought resistance, it was aligned to the strategy.

The dialogue between the R&D, commercial, and strategy functions cannot stop once the R&D strategy is set. Over time, leaders of all three groups should reexamine the strategic direction and continuously refine target product profiles as customer needs and the competitive landscape evolve.

What we need to deliver it. This part of the R&D strategy determines what capabilities and technologies the R&D organization must have in place to bring the desired solutions to market. The distinction between the two is subtle but important. Simply put, R&D capabilities are the technical abilities to discover, develop, or scale marketable solutions. Capabilities are unlocked by a combination of technologies and assets, and focus on the outcomes. Technologies, however, focus on the inputs—for example, CRISPR is a technology that enables the genome-editing capability.

This delineation protects against the common pitfall of the R&D organization fixating on components of a capability instead of the capability itself—potentially missing the fact that the capability itself has evolved. Consider the dawn of the digital age: in many engineering fields, a historical reliance on talent (human number crunchers) was suddenly replaced by the need for assets (computers). Those who focused on hiring the fastest mathematicians were soon overtaken by rivals who recognized the capability provided by emerging technologies.

The simplest way to identify the needed capabilities is to go through the development processes of priority solutions step by step—what will it take to produce a new product or feature? Being exhaustive is not the point; the goal is to identify high-priority capabilities, not to log standard operating procedures.

Prioritizing capabilities is a critical but often contentious aspect of developing an R&D strategy. For some capabilities, being good is sufficient. For others, being best in class is vital because it enables a faster path to market or the development of a better product than those of competitors. Take computer-aided design (CAD), which is used to design and prototype engineering components in numerous industries, such as aerospace or automotive. While companies in those sectors need that capability, it is unlikely that being the best at it will deliver a meaningful advantage. Furthermore, organizations should strive to anticipate which capabilities will be most important in the future, not what has mattered most to the business historically.

Once capabilities are prioritized, the R&D organization needs to define what being “good” and “the best” at them will mean over the course of the strategy. The bar rises rapidly in many fields. Between 2009 and 2019, the cost of sequencing a genome dropped 150-fold, for example. 2 Kris A. Wetterstrand, “DNA sequencing costs: Data,” NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program (GSP), August 25, 2020, genome.gov. Next, the organization needs to determine how to develop, acquire, or access the needed capabilities. The decision of whether to look internally or externally is crucial. An automatic “we can build it better” mindset diminishes the benefits of specialization and dilutes focus. Additionally, the bias to building everything in-house can cut off or delay access to the best the world has to offer—something that may be essential for high-priority capabilities. At Procter & Gamble, it famously took the clearly articulated aspiration of former CEO A. G. Lafley to break the company’s focus on in-house R&D and set targets for sourcing innovation externally. As R&D organizations increasingly source capabilities externally, finding partners and collaborating with them effectively is becoming a critical capability in its own right.

How we will do it. The choices of operating model and organizational design will ultimately determine how well the R&D strategy is executed. During the strategy’s development, however, the focus should be on enablers that represent cross-cutting skills and ways of working. A strategy for attracting, developing, and retaining talent is one common example.

Another is digital enablement, which today touches nearly every aspect of what the R&D function does. Artificial intelligence can be used at the discovery phase to identify emerging market needs or new uses of existing technology. Automation and advanced analytics approaches to experimentation can enable high throughput screening at a small scale and distinguish the signal from the noise. Digital (“in silico”) simulations are particularly valuable when physical experiments are expensive or dangerous. Collaboration tools are addressing the connectivity challenges common among geographically dispersed project teams. They have become indispensable in bringing together existing collaborators, but the next horizon is to generate the serendipity of chance encounters that are the hallmark of so many innovations.

Testing your R&D strategy

Developing a strategy for the R&D organization entails some unique challenges that other functions do not face. For one, scientists and engineers have to weigh considerations beyond their core expertise, such as customer, market, and economic factors. Stakeholders outside R&D labs, meanwhile, need to understand complex technologies and development processes and think along much longer time horizons than those to which they are accustomed.

For an R&D strategy to be robust and comprehensive enough to serve as a blueprint to guide the organization, it needs to involve stakeholders both inside and outside the R&D group, from leading scientists to chief commercial officers. What’s more, its definition of capabilities, technologies, talent, and assets should become progressively more granular as the strategy is brought to life at deeper levels of the R&D organization. So how can an organization tell if its new strategy passes muster? In our experience, McKinsey’s ten timeless tests of strategy  apply just as well to R&D strategy as to corporate and business-unit strategies. The following two tests are the most important in the R&D context:

• Does the organization’s strategy tap the true source of advantage? Too often, R&D organizations conflate technical necessity (what is needed to develop a solution) with strategic importance (distinctive capabilities that allow an organization to develop a meaningfully better solution than those of their competitors). It is also vital for organizations to regularly review their answers to this question, as capabilities that once provided differentiation can become commoditized and no longer serve as sources of advantage.
• Does the organization’s strategy balance commitment-rich choices with flexibility and learning? R&D strategies may have relatively long time horizons but that does not mean they should be insulated from changes in the outside world and never revisited. Companies should establish technical, regulatory, or other milestones that serve as clear decision points for shifting resources to or away from certain research areas. Such milestones can also help mark progress and gauge whether strategy execution is on track.

Additionally, the R&D strategy should be simply and clearly communicated to other functions within the company and to external stakeholders. To boost its clarity, organizations might try this exercise: distill the strategy into a set of fill-in-the-blank components that define, first, how the world will evolve and how the company plans to refocus accordingly (for example, industry trends that may lead the organization to pursue new target markets or segments); next, the choices the R&D function will make in order to support the company’s new focus (which capabilities will be prioritized and which de-emphasized); and finally, how the R&D team will execute the strategy in terms of concrete actions and milestones. If a company cannot fit the exercise on a single page, it has not sufficiently synthesized the strategy—as the famed physicist Richard Feynman observed, the ultimate test of comprehension is the ability to convey something to others in a simple manner.

Cascading the strategy down through the R&D organization will further reinforce its impact. For example, asking managers to communicate the strategy to their subordinates will deepen their own understanding. A useful corollary is that those hearing the strategy for the first time are introduced to it by their immediate supervisors rather than more distant R&D leaders. One R&D group demonstrated the broad benefits of this communication model: involving employees in developing and communicating the R&D strategy helped it double its Organizational Health Index  strategic clarity score, which measures one of the four “power practices”  highly connected to organizational performance.

R&D represents a massive innovation investment, but as companies confront globalized competition, rapidly changing customer needs, and technological shifts coming from an ever-wider range of fields, they are struggling to deliver on R&D’s full potential. A clearly articulated R&D strategy that supports and informs the corporate strategy is necessary to maximize the innovation investment and long-term company value.

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An Overview of Research and Development in Academia

• First Online: 03 February 2022

Cite this chapter

• Elias Baydoun 4 ,
• Joelle Mesmar 4 ,
• Abdul Rahman Beydoun 5 &
• John R. Hillman 6  

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This overview chapter encompasses the main underpinning themes of research and development (R&D) of universities around the world. Our observations and opinions apply equally to public-sector university-linked research institutes that conduct mainly original research as opposed to policy research. After an Introduction that includes defining the terms used in the chapter and scoping the topic, the main 13 sections of the chapter cover (a) R&D as a fundamental feature of human development reflecting the inherent curiosity of humans and their ability to learn and implement their knowledge. (b) The rationale for modern governments to invest in R&D, referring to the New Growth Theory and meeting the needs of modern societies. (c) The rationale for private-sector organisations to invest in R&D to ensure their long-term sustainability and competitiveness. (d) The various definitions and concepts of R&D. and Research & Experimental Development. (e) The roles and implications of the rapidly expanding number of transformative technologies that are not only profoundly transforming virtually all R&D but also the operation of modern societies including universities. (f) The need for specialist facilities, staffing, and learned societies for R&D to thrive. (g) The importance of international collaboration. (h) Funding sources for R&D. (i) The actuality of academic R&D, including both good practice and deleterious effects of poor management. (j) The pivotal wide-ranging roles of governments. (k) Impediments to successful R&D in both the public and private sectors. (l) Geopolitical aspects of R&D, and (m) Future of R&D. The Conclusions Section considers recommendations on R&D policies for the Arab world as well as for developing economies based on our global analysis of R&D.

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Baydoun, E., Mesmar, J., Beydoun, A.R., Hillman, J.R. (2022). An Overview of Research and Development in Academia. In: Badran, A., Baydoun, E., Hillman, J.R. (eds) Higher Education in the Arab World: Research and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80122-9_2

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What do you want to do?

What is research and development.

Research and development (R&D) is when businesses gather knowledge to create new products or discover new ways to improve their existing products and services. Larger companies may have their own research and development team that will test and refine products or processes before commercial use. However, many companies outsource this work to universities due to a lack of in-house capacity and to access the expertise and advanced research equipment they possess.

Some companies invest far more in R&D than others due to the competitiveness and demands of their industry. For example, a consumer technology company is always trying to release devices that are more appealing than its competitors so will invest heavily on product design research to make their devices more innovative. 

Businesses of all sizes need to invest in research and development if they want to achieve future growth, stay abreast of developments in their industry and reduce production costs. Fortunately, Brunel University London is a world leading research institution dedicated to delivering solutions to a broad range of organisations of all sizes. We have academics from a wide range of disciplines that are bringing significant benefits to our business partners.

Benefits of research and development at Brunel University London:

• Inexpensive way to explore new ideas and find a gap in the market
• We can help you secure funding from the Government and the EU to develop your business whether your organisation is large or small
• We have world class equipment, expertise and facilities to conduct research projects and are continually investing money in the latest technology
• Working with Brunel can improve brand reputation and profile and potentially attract future investment
• Bringing innovative products to the market could give your business a competitive advantage. 

Which research and development method is right for you? 

There are a number of services we offer, however, it is important to have an objective when selecting a specific type of research and development so you can achieve your business goals in the most efficient way possible. 

For example: 

Objective: Develop new products and services

Innovation Voucher If you have an idea for a new product we can offer you a voucher valued between £1,000 - £5,000 to cover the project costs. This initiative is best suited to new start-ups and SMEs. 

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships  Transfer knowledge and expertise from the academic partner to your organisation to enable a progressive change in technology and expertise to impact on new products and services.  Co-Innovate 

A scheme funded by the European Regional Development Fund to help support new product and service innovation for SMEs in London. The services offered by Co-Innovate are free but you must be an SME based in London. 

Objective: Resolve a specific product or process problem 

Consultancy 

Access directly Brunel's world leading academic expertise and have focused attention to address a specific problem or issue. 

Objective: Explore ideas for new products and services

Research Partnerships

Larger organisations may want to form a partnership with us to generate mutually valuable and beneficial research for the long term. 

Undergraduate Student Project

Use Brunel's students to develop and amplify new concepts and prototypes. If this is something you are interested in please get in touch with our research team. 

Commercialisation 

It's possible that right now a particular piece of research is being developed in one of our research centres that could potentially be a marketable product/service within your industry and you may want to monetise it. 

Objective: Up-skill staff

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships 

Highly qualified staff or graduates work in your company's premises and project manage an agreed programme to transfer new technical skills and knowledge to your company staff. 

Co-Innovate 

Co-Innovate organise a number of events throughout the year for SMEs to help small businesses gain valuable business insights. 

Can't see your requirements here?  If you have a different business objective that we have not covered but could benefit from employing research and development please get in touch so we can see if we can help you. 

Your project could be short or long, large or small in scope and scale so it is hard to calculate a cost of a project until we have analysed different factors such as your specific needs, project duration and level of expertise needed. Once we get in contact with you to discuss your goals and put all these factors into consideration we can then let you know the cost before work commences. However, we may also be able to help you get access to funding to cover the costs of some of these services. 

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What Every Gig Worker Needs to Know

Dealing with the social and emotional expanse of gig work in a new era.

By Dr. Rodney Luster

In Part I of this blog series blog on Gig working , we explored the roots of gig work and its revitalized emergence recently. But, there is much more to understand and explore about the nature of gig working and most especially, how gig workers "experience" the role and what they will need to successfully embrace it. In this post, we will also explore the facets of components that every gig worker should consider and plan for so that they are well-prepared as they continue to work in the gig economy.

Experience becomes the teacher

Here is what we know, and that is that those working and living in the gig economy will require much more when it comes to successfully navigating the market and the role (Ashford et al., 2018). Success in the gig economy is layered with uncertainty, and it is dependent on an array of variables such as the intrinsic motivation of the gig worker to self-initiate in areas such as marketing one’s self, engaging the public proactively, working confidently amidst issues, balancing life and personal issues, and more. This is all done while meeting the demands and needs of the urban economy for services being offered. The entrepreneurial spirit is, however, very alive in these practices, despite their challenges. So how should we nurture our professional life as a gig worker to ensure that we are positively engaging the experience? Here we will explore five primary components every gig worker needs to pay attention to if they want to thrive in today's work world.

The Gig worker and "social anchoring"

Loneliness is inherent in the role as gig workers as they move from job to job and client to client based on the various “micro” needs of the client. One of my friends who is a DoorDasher mentions “loneliness on the job” this way,

Although I like being on the road and doing this my way, I am often left to my thoughts between orders. Sometimes that may not be good depending on the kind of day I am having.”

Our psychology is built around meaningful interaction. The “autonomy” of gig work sets up a dual psychological experience of feeling bereft of organizational attachments alongside identity-based challenges amidst the desire for freedom and autonomy. Normally we would engage a community at work, but gig workers do experience a sense of “aloneness” in what they do, which can spiral into loneliness and further into depression. This aspect of autonomy and lack of attachments can be an undermining factor if left unchecked (Kunda et al., 2002). Having good social anchors outside of work, whether it is friend groups, church or other socializing activities is a good refueling device for gig workers.

"Bricolage" and applying resources

Bricolage is about engaging and applying resources available, building from diverse materials, to handle issues or tackle goals, and is imperative for gig workers (Ashford et. al., 2007). Bricolage may occur when we assess and combine resources creatively for issues such as the sudden loss of a job or job resources, or interruptions in the day. Bricolage helps the gig worker build behaviorally adaptative skills by thinking creatively through sudden issues rather than falling back on formerly rehearsed alternatives and actions.

Bricolage requires proactivity . Harnessing proactive states of behavior in an anticipatory action-oriented way. This means proactivity harnessing a “self-starting” type of behavior that is not only present-focused but future-focused as well, to make the necessary modifications in “self” and one's resourcing that will help build resilience, self-efficacy, and create sustainable business practices to assist in preparing for unanticipated external shocks.

Proactivity in in fact is already present in gig workers because of the inherent nature of such environments that are built on autonomy, accountability, ambiguity, and discrepant events. These aforementioned conditions are present and foster proactivity most of the time, so adding bricolage practices to that palette will help gig workers become more prepared for a variety of situations.

Creatively enhancing “skill development” for the gig worker

Gig workers must come to embrace the idea of self-initiating or self-starting behaviors throughout their career and this applies to enhancing one’s development and competencies due to frequently changing marketplace conditions. Gig workers should not count on their employers for skills development since such connections are fleeting and unpredictable. Instead, those who engage in gig work must learn to embrace self-initiating behaviors where they take the reigns of development and learning “on the side,” which will also help foster multi-core competencies.

Pursuing opportunities outside one’s comfort zone to learn new routines is the first step to kick-starting the self-initiating process. Additionally, finding and seeking out newer ways of doing things can help build core competencies in areas such as communication, marketing, and digital skills. Self-initiated kick-starting will be important for those who want to remain salient and viable in the new gig economy.

Building "relational" networks

I mentioned earlier the challenges of “psychical" loneliness for gig workers given their autonomy in work, however, the conditions that foster loneliness in gig work are modifiable . We know that relationships shape individuals' perceptions of work. Gig workers, with a little planning and strategic efforts, can engage their “relational connectedness” by developing relational supports through crafting what is referred to as a relational network that ties both “inside work” to “outside work.” Such efforts help grow one's human connectedness and also help mitigate the loneliness and stress of the role.

For some, gig work may align with a natural predisposition towards introverted tendencies, but there is still an important aspect to fostering a support network. This may mean for those who chose gig work based on the desire to work alone, to work on developing one’s relational agility further. These would be skills relative to cultivating relationships quickly, forming new relationships, and maintaining current ones. Our professional acumen takes on a more purposeful and renewed focus when we learn to utilize relationships more productively, and in this case, perhaps more so for their "seasonal" natures (Petriglieri, 2011).

Learning to regulate “oscillating” emotional content

Surface acting , where one controls or inhibits emotions to manage impressions, may be something of a necessity in the short term for gig workers to engage their jobs productively (Diefendorff et. al., 2003). But it is also a “superficial” way to regulate emotional affect, and most often leads to suppression of emotions, alongside a feeling of cognitive dissonance . For gig workers, it is and will be imperative that they work towards a form of “deeper acting” thinking which is the more innate opportunity one has to regulate emotions by truly attenuating to one’s feelings and emotional states (Diefendorff et. al., 2003).

For example, a gig worker may smile and look a certain way on the "outside" but may be hurting on the inside, suppressing emotional content and ultimately creating internal health issues. Deeper acting is not a “fake it until you make it” attitude, but rather, a self-initiated reflective awareness such as acknowledging things like, “I feel sad , so then, what actionable steps can I take to modify this feeling state?” This could mean that gig workers build the necessary resourcing for down-regulating stress such as "practiced" methods using focused breathing , mindfulness approaches, or periodic therapy check-ins, to assist. There are many ways to steward in deep acting if we take "actionable" steps and account for the potential that one day, we may feel the "burdens" that may come with the role.

The need for more research

Ultimately, leadership and organizational research will need to look at these areas and measure the opportunities in the current climate of an ever-increasing gig economy. For researchers, there is also the prospect of understanding if , and how gig workers will build and utilize resources, helping us understand more about deficits and prospects. In the end, surviving and thriving in the new gig economy will require much more from the individuals who decide that "gigging" is where they want to remain.

Ashford, S. J., Caza, B. B., & Reid, E. M. (2018). From surviving to thriving in the gig economy: A research agenda for individuals in the new world of work.  Research in Organizational Behavior ,  38 (0191-3085), 23–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2018.11.001

Ashford, S. J., George, E., & Blatt, R. (2007). 2 Old Assumptions, New Work.  Academy of Management Annals ,  1 (1), 65–117. https://doi.org/10.5465/078559807

Diefendorff, J. M., & Gosserand, R. H. (2003). Understanding the emotional labor process: A control theory perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior , 24 (8), 945-959. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMP.2006.19873409

Kunda, G., Barley, S. R., & Evans, J. (2002). Why Do Contractors Contract? The Experience of Highly Skilled Technical Professionals in a Contingent Labor Market.  ILR Review ,  55 (2), 234–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979390205500203

Petriglieri, J. L. (2011). Under Threat: Responses to and the Consequences of Threats to Individuals’ Identities.  Academy of Management Review ,  36 (4), 641–662. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2009.0087

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rodney Luster, Ph.D.

Dr. Rodney Luster has been with the University since 2012. Rodney Luster is the Senior Director of Research Strategy, Innovation, and Development for the Research Center Enterprise (RSE) within the College of Doctoral Studies. In this role Dr. Luster helps lead innovation in research, as well as connecting the pragmatics of research to industry. A major part of this role is communicating out the research potentials inside the RSE.

He also runs his own private practice known as Inspirethought Therapy and is a contributing writer with his own Blog at Psychology Today.

Study Shows How Higher Education Supports Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Students Through Culturally Relevant Courses, Programs, and Research

Analysis of minority-serving institutions on the East and West Coasts demonstrates layered processes to build students’ capacities

The model minority myth paints a picture of Asian Americans as a monolithic group with unparalleled success in academics. A new NYU study unpacks this myth, exploring the needs of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander students and how higher education institutions support these populations.

In 2007, Congress established a federal designation for higher education institutions that enroll at least 10 percent of undergraduate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA&NHPI) students, and who enroll a significant proportion of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This designation as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI) was among one of the newest categories of minority-serving institutions that receive federal funding to advance educational equity and support for ethnic and racial minorities.

In a two-site case study, Mike Hoa Nguyen , assistant professor of education at NYU Steinhardt, collected data from interviews, internal and public university documents, and observations of activities, courses, and meetings to determine the process in which AANAPISI programs expand students’ capacities through culturally relevant coursework, mentorship, research, and civic engagement. His findings are published in The Review of Higher Education .

“AANAPISIs demonstrate a federal commitment to supporting the unique educational needs of AA&NHPI students, which are too often obscured by the model minority myth,” said Nguyen. “This myth dangerously asserts that Asian American students, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students by association, are universally successful and unparalleled in their academic achievements. AANAPISIs play a major role in addressing this problem, and in doing so, provide critical resources to uplift the students they serve. This study documents the process in which these colleges and universities engage in this important work.”

Nguyen's study centered on a large, public community college on the West Coast and a large, urban, regional public university on the East Coast. Nguyen’s findings related to the experiences of students in these programs.

He uncovered a five-tiered process that the two institutions use to build opportunities for learning, practice, and engagement:

AA&NHPI Focused Coursework At both institutions, courses focused on these populations are offered through the institutions’ Asian American Studies programs, where students are exposed to concepts connected to their racial and ethnic identities. One student shared her experience with a course, Asian Women in the United States, “Through my experience with that class I learned…for the first time, issues that affected my community. Specifically, me as an Asian American woman, specifically Vietnamese American…”

Teaching and Mentoring Students who had previously taken AA&NHPI coursework provided tutoring and mentoring to support new students with classwork, programs, books, and scholarship applications.  According to one mentor, “Cambodian Americans fall through the cracks, we’re just not in higher ed…It’s not a supportive space for us…[the AANAPISI faculty] understand…from their own community work, from being on campus, and [from] teaching for so long that…when they find students who fit these demographics it makes sense for them to mentor them.”

Advanced AA&NHPI Focused Coursework After serving as mentors, students often take more advanced courses focused on theoretical, historical, and contemporary issues regarding the AA&NHPI experience to continue their academics while gaining tools to make larger contributions toward their communities. 

Academic and Research Development Students who complete advanced coursework are provided opportunities to engage in academic projects and research with faculty and staff, presenting research at conferences or publishing in peer-reviewed journals. 

Professional and Community Experience The final step in the process offers opportunities for students to engage in community-based projects, internships, and employment with partner organizations, government offices, or other schools. A student shared that his research experience led to the creation of a Vietnamese American organizing and training program. “[Researchers] found out that Vietnamese Americans in [the neighborhood] don't participate in civics or politics…they basically feel disenfranchised, like their vote doesn’t matter…So, the research showed that there needs to be an organization to help push and provide opportunities to talk about politics in a Vietnamese American progressive context…”

“AANAPISIs are the backbone for AA&NHPI students in higher education. These institutions account for six percent of all colleges and universities, yet enroll over 40 percent of all AA&NHPI undergraduates,” said Nguyen. “This study offers new understandings of the critical role that AANAPISIs play to expand educational opportunity and enrich learning experiences—which can be adopted beyond AANAPISIs and for other students—as well as inform the work of policymakers as they seek new solutions to refine and regulate the administration of minority-serving institutions.”

Funding for this study was provided by the UCLA Institute of American Cultures and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. 

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Feature Article: Digital Mapping Helps First Responders Better Navigate Inside Buildings

Agencies are using S&T-funded Mappedin to find their way quickly during critical incidents in schools and public buildings.

GPS systems may get first responders to incident scenes fast, but navigating buildings’ complex mazes of hallways and corridors in potentially chaotic or low-visibility situations can be tricky. Relying on hard copy or digital building blueprints can be cumbersome or even outdated, adding precious seconds when time is of the essence.

A solution, brought to you by the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and digital indoor map navigator Mappedin, was completed in 2022 and has since flourished. The online Mappedin mapmaking subscription, which can transform floor plans into interactive and easily maintainable digitized maps, was recently launched and is currently being used by both response agencies and corporate clients. With easy-to-use mapping tools and data, Mappedin provides high-quality 3D map creation, data maintenance, and map sharing to city executives, building owner operators and first responders to make and deliver maps for a variety of safety-related situations—from advance preparation and planning to assistance during emergency incidents.

“With Mappedin, first responders can quickly determine the interior layout of structures before entering a building to make informed decisions,” said Anthony Caracciolo, the S&T program manager who led this effort. “Mappedin assists them with identifying where interior rooms, doors, stairs, key equipment and hazardous materials are located and enables them to possess indoor awareness of a facility before entering.”

Mappedin provides intelligent digitization of floor plans from various sources (e.g., computer-aided design drawings, PDF documents, photographs) and maintains a digital reserve of 3D interactive maps accessible on tablets and cell phones. These maps can be marked up and shared via a private link accessible only to authorized personnel.

To save time in mapmaking, Mappedin leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to create high-quality 3D interactive indoor maps from uploaded floor plan images in 0.5 minutes to 3 minutes. The tool also uses LiDAR, a remote sensing method, to create floor plans from scratch. With an iPhone Pro or iPad Pro and the Mappedin iOS app, users can scan their indoor environment and turn the data into a digital map, which they can further edit and customize by labeling specific rooms and areas and adding attributes such as descriptions, photographs and links.

S&T initially funded Mappedin Inc. in 2019 to develop the indoor mapping tool (then called Response) after S&T's First Responder Resource Group indicated this type of technology was a top need. S&T’s goal was to help responders quickly navigate indoor floor plans in real-time when responding to incidents. Mappedin enables point-to-point wayfinding, like an indoor GPS, and is available to first responders and local governments as a licensed cloud-based service. S&T and Mappedin demonstrated the software in 2022 , when first responders assessed the prototype’s efficiency and recommended improvements before commercialization. First responders found it better than existing technologies and liked its compatibility with many existing software platforms. Then, S&T and Mappedin further improved the software based on feedback from U.S. and Canadian first responders and local governments.

Public schools and fire departments are among users

Mappedin is already in use successfully. Since its official launch in September 2023, more than 4,000 user accounts have been created.  

Many of Mappedin’s new customers are public schools and fire departments for whom mapping services are free. To provide life-saving technology to schools and first responders, two former firefighters have integrated Mappedin maps into their school safety product, AIKI ClassroomSAFE. The app provides situational awareness and a comprehensive view of other responding agencies, students, and the real-time status of classrooms. According to experienced firefighter and AIKI co-founder, Damian McKeon, Mappedin has taken a multi-hour mapping process down to a couple of minutes.

Some forward-thinking schools in the U.S. and Canada are also looking to use Mappedin. Three pilot Canadian cities–Orangeville, Kitchener and Waterloo–have already adopted the tool to digitize paper floor plans for a variety of building types for pre-planning and educational purposes.

Also, first responders in 911 incident dispatch will be able to access Mappedin-created maps within their safety platform for precise geolocation. By providing Mappedin’s accurate geo-located annotations of key safety equipment before the trucks arrive on scene, the 911 dispatch can be prioritized as the first point of contact. According to Dain Bolling, Founder of Pure Wireless LLC, Mappedin easily creates spatially accurate maps suitable for first responders during critical incidents.

Moreover, efforts are underway to map an entire Florida county. Mappedin is accelerating its Maps for Good initiative to address the needs of schools and first responders. Eligible participants will receive no- to low-cost indoor mapping. “Indoor maps are crucial for situational awareness in built environments, and Mappedin is proud to be part of the solution,” said Hongwei Liu, co-founder and CEO at Mappedin. “With Maps for Good, we’re putting AI-powered indoor mapping directly into the hands of front-line professionals, giving them purpose-built tools to do their jobs and keep people safe.”

Mappedin could be integrated with other tools

The Mappedin free subscription is available for schools and responders, where anyone is encouraged to create their own maps. The paid Plus subscription, released in February 2024, and the Pro subscription, coming later this year, add advanced capabilities, including integration with other tools.

“One such possible integration is with the S&T-developed gunshot detection system that detects and alerts police of gunshots,” said Caracciolo. “If integrated with Mappedin, police would not only be alerted of the gunshots, but they could also receive an interior map of a building depicting where the gunshots are occurring, thus enabling police officers to engage the shooter and locate and start treating victims as soon as possible.”

Additionally, corporate customers, such as airports, stadiums, and office buildings are also using Mappedin for things like complex mapping, wayfinding, and custom integrations.

“Ultimately,” Caracciolo added, “S&T invested in Mappedin to equip first responders with the best tool to pre-plan and navigate building interiors in emergencies.”  

Learn more about S&T’s innovative industry partnerships and support for the nation’s first responders . For related media inquiries, contact [email protected] .

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Research and Development (R&D) Expenses: Definition and Example

Yarilet Perez is an experienced multimedia journalist and fact-checker with a Master of Science in Journalism. She has worked in multiple cities covering breaking news, politics, education, and more. Her expertise is in personal finance and investing, and real estate.

Investopedia / Julie Bang

What Are Research and Development (R&D) Expenses?

Research and development ( R&D ) expenses are associated directly with the research and development of a company's goods or services and any intellectual property generated in the process. A company generally incurs R&D expenses in the process of finding and creating new products or services.

As a common type of operating expense , a company may capitalize R&D expenses.

Key Takeaways

• Research and development (R&D) expenses are direct expenditures relating to a company's efforts to develop, design, and enhance its products, services, technologies, or processes.
• The industrial, technological, health care, and pharmaceutical sectors typically incur the highest degree of R&D expenses.
• The IRS offers tax breaks for R&D expenses, and these may also be capitalized as business expense.

Understanding Research and Development Expenses

Research and development is a systematic activity that combines basic and applied research to discover solutions to new or existing problems or to create or update goods and services. When a company conducts its own R&D, it often results in the ownership of intellectual property in the form of patents or copyrights that result from discoveries or inventions.

An essential component of a company's research and development arm is its direct R&D expenses, which can range on a spectrum from relatively minor costs to several billions of dollars for large research-focused corporations. Companies in the industrial, technological, health care, and pharmaceutical sectors usually have the highest levels of R&D expenses. Some companies—for example, those in technology—reinvest a significant portion of their profits back into research and development as an investment in their continued growth.

Large companies have also been able to conduct R&D through acquisition by investing in or subsidizing some of those smaller companies' costs or acquiring them outright.

Real World Example of R&D Expenses

Tech companies rely heavily on their research and development capabilities, so they have relatively outsized R&D expenses. In a constantly changing environment, it's important for such a company to remain on the bleeding edge of innovation. For example, Meta ( META ), formerly Facebook, invests heavily in the research and development of products such as virtual reality and predictive AI chatbots . These endeavors allow Meta to diversify its business and find new growth opportunities as technology continues to evolve.

Meta's 2014 acquisition of Oculus Rift is an example of R&D expenses through acquisition. Meta already had the internal resources necessary to build out a virtual reality division, but by acquiring an existing virtual reality company, it was able to expedite the time it took them to develop this capability.

Reasons to Conduct R&D

Businesses conduct R&D for many reasons, the first and foremost being new product research and development. Before any new product is released into the marketplace, it goes through significant research and development phases, which include a product's market opportunity, cost, and production timeline. After adequate research, a new product enters the development phase, where a company creates the product or service using the concept laid out during the research phase.

Some companies use R&D to update existing products or conduct quality checks in which a business evaluates a product to ensure that it is still adequate and discusses any improvements. If the improvements are cost-effective, they will be implemented during the development phase.

Internal Revenue Service. " IRS Sets Forth Required Information for a Valid Research Credit Claim for Refund ."

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Meta. " Facebook to Acquire Oculus ."

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Biden is pouring money into the 'digital twins' of AI chips

The biden administration is allocating $285 million in chips act funding for companies that can develop the technology.

The Biden administration is looking for proposals from companies that can establish and operate an institution that will develop “digital twins” of semiconductors, with the opportunity to receive up to $285 million in funding.

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The CHIPS Manufacturing USA institute will focus on digital twins, or virtual models, of semiconductors , which have the same structure, make-up, and behavior of a physical chip, making it easier to simulate how a chip might work in different scenarios before going into production. The institute will focus on the development, testing, and use of digital twins for chip manufacturing, advanced packaging, chip assembly, and testing.

Digital twins can exist in the cloud, therefore allowing for more collaboration between engineers and researchers across the U.S., the Biden administration said. This will provide opportunities for faster innovation and reduce research and development costs, it added.

“Digital twin technology can help to spark innovation in research, development, and manufacturing of semiconductors across the country — but only if we invest in America’s understanding and ability of this new technology,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement, adding that the new institute “will not only help to make America a leader in developing this new technology for the semiconductor industry, it will also help train the next generation of American workers and researchers to use digital twins for future advances in R&D and production of chips.”

Digital twin technology can also be integrated with artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to boost the pace of chip development and manufacturing in the U.S., the Biden administration said. The $285 million allocation from the CHIPS and Science Act will support research to develop digital twins, establishing physical and digital facilities across the country, and workforce training, among other things. The Biden administration will hold briefings with interested companies this month to discuss funding opportunities.

“Digital twin technology will help transform the semiconductor industry,” Laurie Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), said. “This historic investment in the CHIPS Manufacturing USA institute will help unite the semiconductor industry to unlock the enormous potential of digital twin technology for breakthrough discoveries.”

The Chips Act was established by the Biden administration in 2022 as part of an effort to advance U.S. chipmaking amid a booming AI industry and competition with China. Semiconductor pioneer Intel and other major chipmakers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung have received billions in Chips Act funding so far.

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