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Industry vs Research or Industry with Research

By Diana Viegas*

I started working at INESC Porto as soon as I graduated. I stayed here for eight years and this was where I concluded my PhD. After I finished my doctoral studies, I was curious about the industrial environment and so I went down that road, without ever abandoning research. Right now I am working in the national industry and supervising a few PhD students.

The industrial environment has nothing to do with the rhythm of research. In industry there is a constant demand for immediate responses, and that’s what makes this area so exciting. However, the level of knowledge depth, unlike what happens in research, does not go beyond what’s necessary.

This paradigm should not exist; both structures should coexist. From my personal experience, I can say that it is extremely important to merge these two worlds. The ability to create innovation/research and development partnerships with our national research centres will have to be the future so that the national industry can become more competitive. This increase in competitiveness is obviously related to an increase in product variety and improvement, not only in terms of affordable raw materials, but also in terms of developing new products or other parameters that will reduce production costs and make the product an asset.

Furthermore, the Science developed in our country, which has evolved considerably over the past few years, can only go further with private funding. The State will not (and cannot) fund everything around here. The exponential growth of the scientific community, in numbers and in quality, shows the results of a policy dedicated to research conducted over several years. However, if the business community does not change their ways, all this investment will be in vain, and we will be (we already are) exporting “brains”. Both Science and Industry will lose...

*Guest Researcher at INESC TEC (the coordinating entity of INESC Porto) and collaborator at Cabelte