Industrial Partnership Programmes unique and successful instrument

In recent years interest in the IPP has grown considerably and this has placed a huge pressure on the available budget. In October 2014, the Governing Board of FOM commissioned an evaluation of the IPP funding instrument. A specially appointed independent evaluation committee has examined the contribution of the IPP instrument to science, to innovative effects at the participating companies and to the Dutch knowledge economy in general. 

Conclusions and recommendations
The committee concludes that thanks to the IPPs FOM has succeeded in:

• generating high-quality knowledge (with impact above the Dutch average). Furthermore, the yield from IPP research is just as high as that from other FOM research;
• identifying and entering new scientific disciplines;
• sustainably connecting fundamental physics with the innovation activities of large, knowledge-intensive companies;
• contributing in various ways to the innovation agendas of the participating companies by strengthening the specific content of these and by giving boosts to focus these more on the longer term and therefore to make these more sustainable;
• training talent that (immediately after the PhD graduation) twice as often pursues a career in industry than is usually the case for FOM PhDs and that on average completes the PhD research six to nine months faster than the Dutch average;
• realising a financial multiplier: the participation of companies ensures a research budget more than three times higher than would be the case if only FOM funding were available.

The committee has made three concrete recommendations:

1. Make the IPP more widely accessible: to other disciplines and smaller companies.
2. Decrease the pressure on the budget by selecting even more strictly still, applying more focus and expanding the budget. The committee notes explicitly that this expansion must not be to the detriment of curiosity-driven research.
3. Improve collaboration in generic IPPs. These are programmes in which a call is issued and the best proposals are selected (as opposed to specific IPPs in which the research projects and researchers involved have been predetermined before the actual application of the IPP).

Wim van Saarloos, until 1 June director of FOM, looks back: "I am very proud that the Industrial Partnership Programmes have resulted in so many new partnerships between science and industry without any concessions being made to the quality of the research. That is a valuable contribution to both the knowledge economy and the top sectors policy, especially as the PhD researchers from the IPP often pursue a career in industry. A fantastic result!"

Rob Hamer, chair of the evaluation committee: "FOM stuck its neck out ten years ago by starting with the IPP. That has worked out well. From a business perspective FOM has invested 30 million euro in IPPs. The monetary value of the output, however, is 100 million euro and so the financial multiplier is huge. Within the IPPs, researchers in collaboration with industry realise excellent results. In the media, industry is often accused of exploiting research funding and robbing researchers of their freedom. This thorough evaluation, however, demonstrates that this is not true. Both researchers and industry are enthusiastic about continuing the IPP. The instrument is so good that it should be implemented as a best practice in other disciplines or the entire natural sciences domain."

FOM Industrial Partnership Programmes (IPPs)
The funding instrument IPP focuses on demand-driven (use-inspired), explorative, pre-competitive research. Research within IPPs must primarily focus on fundamental understanding, but in addition to this also on future applications. The IPP is unique in this regard: other funding instruments focus primarily on either the science or the applications. Another important characteristic of the IPP is that the academic researchers and companies enter the collaboration on an equal footing. This equal footing also applies to the funding: the companies contribute at least 50 percent in cash to the research (in addition to this the partners often make considerable in-kind contributions). 

Industrial partners
A large number of industrial companies based in the Netherlands are or have been a partner in one or more IPPs: Shell, ASML, Philips, Unilever, AkzoNobel, DSM, Tata Steel, Nuon, FEI, BASF, Fujifilm, Sabic, Océ, SKF, and Roth&Rau. However, companies located outside the Netherlands have been or are a partner as well: Carl Zeiss, Microsoft, BP, Michelin, and AdTech.
Furthermore various knowledge institutes such as TNO and NMi and the technological top institutes (TTIs) M2i, DPI, TIFN and Wetsus are or have been partners. Through the TTIs several companies were involved in an IPP via large consortia.

Information
For further information about this press release please contact Gabby Zegers, Head of Communication FOM, +31 30 600 1222.

A public summary can be are downloaded from the top right of this page. A copy of the full evaluation report (in Dutch) can be requested via info@fom.nl. 

For further information about FOM and collaboration with companies please see the YouTube film Physics & industry at FOM

For questions about the collaboration with industry please contact Pieter de Witte, Head of Research and Companies FOM, +31 30 600 1273.