A new collaborative industry-university programme has been launched with the aim to build a sustainable collaborative research-practice partnership delivering benefits to both industrial and research communities.

The Strategic Technology and Innovation Management (STIM) Consortium was instigated by the Centre for Technology Management (CTM), a research centre which is part of the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), and is open to firms which would like to join.

Membership benefits include access to a network of firms from a range of industry sectors to share experiences with, the opportunity to influence the direction of research and development, participation in case studies and application pilots, and support for transfer and application of the methods developed.

The annual programme, divided into three phases (exploratory, development and consolidation), combines research and practice to ensure well-founded, industrially relevant and useful outputs. Three Consortium network meetings will be held at the IfM each year to review progress and influence the direction of research projects.

The seven areas of focus covered by the 2013 STIM Programme include: light weighting innovation strategy – a roadmap-portfolio process toolkit; organising the front-end of innovation; visualisation for strategy; de-risking projects early; customisable multi-factor scoring system for project selection; technology intelligence evaluation; and technology leadership and deployment.

To find out how you can participate in the Consortium, please contact Dr Rob Phaal (rp108@cam.ac.uk).

Visit the STIM Consortium webpage.