Industry Partnerships Are Key Research Tackles Climate Breakdown
Close collaboration with industry, working with researchers from diverse disciplines and nurturing future generations of academics can help universities solve the world’s most pressing problems.
A recent episode of the THE Connect podcast, produced in partnership with the University of Liverpool, explored how the institution is prioritising collaboration and impact through a research strategy to tackle global challenges.
Host Ashton Wenborn, branded content editor at Times Higher Education, asked how the university supports faculty to produce impactful research that has the power to change global industry.
The Materials Innovation Factory at the University of Liverpool
Andy Cooper, a materials chemist and director of the Materials Innovation Factory at the University of Liverpool, said there were several mechanisms in place, including research institutes like the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy. The university also runs programmes like Prosper, designed for postdoctoral researchers to thrive in multiple career pathways, and has significant grants with industry and organisations including the European Research Council.
The university has a focus on making meaningful connections with industry to encourage cutting-edge breakthroughs. Set up to enable both academic and industry research, the building and facilities at the Materials Innovation Factory are shared for investigations in areas including robotics, digital and chemistry.
The space is used for various collaborative projects, including an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership between the University of Liverpool, the University of Oxford and multinational consumer goods company Unilever. The project attacks the challenge of being carbon neutral in the area of home and personal care products.
"I've learned from hard experiences to talk to industry before you do the research and understand what the real parameters are"
Andy Cooper, a materials chemist and director of the Materials Innovation Factory
“I've learned from hard experiences to talk to industry before you do the research and understand what the real parameters are,” Cooper said. “A lot of the bigger challenges will only be solved through partnerships. Government, industry, academic partnerships, and I would say international partnerships in the long run.
“The longer-term challenge is not only to find carbon neutral or more environmentally acceptable materials and chemistry, but also to develop methods to tackle the problems. So, it’s partly short to medium-term discovery of new materials and chemical processes. But there’s also an element of finding new ways to tackle the problems using methods such as artificial intelligence, computational chemistry and robotics and automation.”
The Materials Innovation Factory at the University of Liverpool
Anna Slater, university research fellow and senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool, focuses on developing tools to discover, optimise and scale up functional materials. She believes collaborations across academic disciplines are essential.
“A lot of the training that I try to imbue in my research group is partly problem solving and the ability to work with others to solve problems, and asking the right questions and finding the right people to assemble a diverse team,” she said. “Because, in the end, you need people who have many different experiences and backgrounds to make a project work, especially when you're trying to do very different and new things.”
With an increasing demand from undergraduates and graduate students to work on sustainable solutions, universities must effectively train the next generation of academic talent.
“These problems have taken a few hundred years to make. They’re not going to be solved in five years,” said Cooper. “And the solution isn’t going to come from one or two big institutes. It’s a global problem and it needs a truly global effort. Ultimately, all of it falls apart if you don't have the generation of scientists who can step up and address the challenge.”
"You need people who have many different experiences and backgrounds to make a project work"
Anna Slater, university research fellow and senior lecturer
Listen to the podcast episode.
Find out more about the University of Liverpool.