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Picture a world where academic research is fast, practical, and beneficial to everyone involved.<\/p>\n
In reality, making university research practical, which typically requires working with industry, can take many years. By that time, it might be too late for it to be of benefit.<\/p>\n
Research has been singled out as a key priority for the upcoming Universities Accord. The review team\u00a0has called for advice<\/a>\u00a0on \u201cmore effective\u201d collaboration between universities and industry to solve \u201cbig challenges\u201d.<\/p>\n We are a\u00a0research group<\/a>\u00a0of academics with years of industry experience in global corporations, designers who have worked on everything from airplane cabin controls to wooden sunglasses, and early career researchers, hoping to see their work address problems that matter.<\/p>\n We have devised an approach to make university and industry collaboration effective.<\/p>\n We have seen it way too many times: academia and industry often struggle to collaborate well.<\/p>\n Traditional academic research\u00a0can be slow<\/a>, focusing on advancing knowledge and peer recognition, while freely sharing results.<\/p>\n In contrast, industry research is driven by commercial dynamics and seeks practical solutions to real-world problems as quickly as possible. Often this is done in secret to protect potential profits.<\/p>\n This difference in goals, interests, approaches, incentives and timeframes leads to unique challenges when academics and industry partners work together.<\/p>\n But ultimately, the two need one another. To achieve impact in the real world, universities need to work with industry to implement their research. And industry benefits from academic research, as it is not constrained by traditional ways of thinking and timeline pressures.<\/p>\n We started doing \u201cresearch sprints<\/a>\u201d in 2015.<\/p>\n We drew inspiration from the \u201cdesign sprint<\/a>\u201d, which began at Google. The idea is to build and test a prototype in just five days.<\/p>\n We committed to having all our research projects embrace this same philosophy. We were also guided by \u201cdesign thinking<\/a>\u201d, which means we prioritise humans and think first and foremost about the people we are researching for and how the research can meet their needs, while of course ensuring research rigour.<\/p>\n We learned (the hard way) that five days is not enough to ensure research rigour. So our sprints are now always 30 days long \u2013 not a day shorter, not a day longer. This pace is bearable for academics and acceptable for industry.<\/p>\n In our research sprints, we bring together researchers, industry partners, end-users and stakeholders to tackle specific problems and develop practical solutions.<\/p>\n First, we work side-by-side with the industry partner to define the problem, collecting data to understand user and stakeholder needs. Then we brainstorm and co-design solutions, and select the best ones. This is where we tap into our academic research.<\/p>\n After this, we create prototypes and test them with end-users. Finally, we provide the solution to the client for implementation.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s no \u201chandover\u201d \u2013 we literally lock ourselves in the same room with partner organisations during each sprint. We\u2019re down in the trenches, rather than up in the ivory tower.<\/p>\n Since 2015 we have done about 40 research sprints. Our clients have included state government agencies, local government departments, financial service providers, and manufacturers.<\/p>\n Our projects have included designing superannuation services for gig economy workers, a \u201cdigital maturity benchmark<\/a>\u201d service (which measures an organisation\u2019s digital impact) for a consultancy, or the first version of the Queensland government\u2019s\u00a0Business Launchpad<\/a>, which helps start and run a small business.<\/p>\n We were also involved with one of the banks that initiated the\u00a0Digital Fraud Reporting Exchange<\/a>, which shares victim information, not just the perpetrator data.<\/p>\n We also run sprints for government policy. We co-created the Queensland government\u2019s\u00a0Digital Economy Strategy<\/a>\u00a0during a research sprint.<\/p>\n Research sprints have a high success rate. In about 63% of cases, the client organisations have implemented or are working on implementing our solutions. Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt's big ideas for how Australia funds and uses research https:\/\/t.co\/IjF35kHfe3<\/a> via @ConversationEDU<\/a><\/p>\n — Brian P Schmidt (@cosmicpinot) April 25, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Why traditional research needs a makeover<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Introducing research sprints<\/strong><\/h4>\n
This is how we do it<\/strong><\/h4>\n
40 sprints so far<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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