Increased attention to collaboration with private companies
AGRO's Industrial Collaboration Committee believes that through teaching and the students we will have a significant and exciting contact to business - an area that we need to be attentive to follow up on and exploit the best possible way.
At present ST focuses very much on increasing the cooperation with private companies and new activities are being launched. One of these is "Brainnovation", which is a meeting between one or more departments and a company at which the challenges of the company or society are the starting point. Participants from AU present relevant research in the area; the company specifies its challenges and potential areas of collaboration for solving the challenges are discussed. The number of AU participants must not exceed 50% of the attendance, including students, PhDs and postdocs.
The latter is in keeping on with the discussions in AGRO's Industrial collaboration Committee, where Michael Kristensen has told about how company projects are a great success among the students.
Industrial projects are established ad hoc through personal contact, for example after student visits to companies. The student must himself or herself contact the company, but AGRO's teachers will assist in bringing about the contact. The projects have a score of 15 ECTS. In connection with the lectures, there is also contact to for example ARLA, DuPont, SEGES, Dansk Industri and agricultural schools, which contribute to defining which graduates and possible PhDs that are needed by the industry.
Therefore, in AGRO's Industrial collaboration Committee we believe that teaching/the students are an important and exciting contact to industry - an area that we should make sure to follow up on and exploit in the best possible way.
AGRO has too few industrial PhDs and postdocs! Here industrial projects may be the initial contact, where Master’s degree students become interested in continuing in an industrial PhD project. For example, CROP has a good cooperation with Nordic Beet Research (Holeby), now with student no. 3. This cooperation has also resulted in published papers, and the students have been happy with the contact with both industry and AGRO. Industrial PhDs/postdocs is an obvious possibility for an increased cooperation between AGRO and private companies - large and small - but it requires a good knowledge of the company in advance. The Industrial PhD/postdoc must be employed in the company, so there must be a good environment for guidance and training. Often small companies do not know enough about the possibility of industrial projects, therefore we must be better at informing our collaborators about these possibilities. In some cases, we should perhaps assist particularly small private companies in writing the application. Traditionally, it has been big companies that have had the capacity to apply for and carry out these projects.
Innovation Fund Denmark offers grants to industrial PhD and postdoc projects. There is a deadline for applications twice a year (next deadline is on 19 September).
The Industrial collaboration Committee would like to contribute to identifying project possibilities. Right now, we are working at getting overview of the companies that AGRO cooperates with and to what extent. At the same time, we will also find out if there are obvious companies with which we do not yet cooperate.
If you have any ideas on how we can strengthen the cooperation with the industry, you are most welcome to contact us.