Industrial Research Institute's R&D Trends Forecast for 2001

Abstract

While shifting their emphasis to growth through new businesses and partnerships, most IRI members are maintaining their RD it placed "Managing R&D for Business Growth" as the top issue for 2000 (see RTM Sept.-Oct. 2000, pp. 15-16). The IRI membership is well represented by the chemical and process industries, and we could speculate that following a decade of R&D downsizing, restructuring and process implementation (e.g., Stage Gate), all of which has not seemed to bring major changes in market value to the chemical industry, there is now renewed emphasis on maximizing value generation from R&D expenditures and aligning R&D for growth. 2. R&D continues to be tightly targeted for tangible business results: * Less participation in Pre-Competitive Consortia (Q9). * Fewer contacts with Federal Labs (Q10). * Less planned increases in Support of Existing Businesses (Q3a). This set of trends, indicating the tendency to be more collaborative, highlights the need for new models of interaction with universities and government laboratories. …