Breakthrough Materials and Applications: Lessons and Innovation Pathways for Industry

SUMMARYAdvanced materials are foundational to driving breakthrough innovations across industries. This whitepaper considers the impact of market dynamics on innova­tion in materials science and engineering, providing lessons and ideas on how to tap into cutting­edge thinking and research from academia to fuel the innovation stream from concept to commercialization.

WHITEPAPER

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INTRODUCTIONWhile in many instances invisible to end consumers, advanced materials are foun­dational to continually driving breakthrough innovations across industries. However, economic pressures have changed the fundamental disposition of materials research between industry and academia, necessitating new approaches to successfully sheep­herding new materials from discovery to commercialization. This whitepaper considers the impact market dynamics have had on innovation in materials science and engineer­ing, providing lessons on how to tap into the cutting­edge thinking and research from academia to fuel the innovation stream from concept to commercialization. Armed with this information, R&D and engineering teams will have a contemporary account­ing of state­of­the­art approaches and a playbook for future innovation.

ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND THE INNOVATION CHALLENGEThere’s an innovation explosion in the field of materials science and engineering, with advances like graphene, bio­based materials and lightweight composites on the leading edge.

A key driver of this innovation is the academic research sector. In its 2013 study, “Sparking Economic Growth,” The Science Coalition explains that, with the closure of AT&T’s Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, RCA Labs and others, more than half of all basic research in the United States is being conducted at universities, while only a fifth remains from the corporate sector.

Given their drive to explore new frontiers, academic researchers are well­positioned to uncover novel materials ideas. It’s a win­win situation for both researchers and their institutions when they successfully publish their breakthroughs in new materials. And publish they do: In a July 2015 “Advanced Materials: Top Technology & Research Trends” webinar, Dr. Stewart Bland, Editor and Senior Publisher of Materials Today, describes a 140% growth in materials research output from 2004–2014.

Much of this academic research is also funded by industry. There is pressure in the corporate sector to continually seek new materials and applications to better meet customer needs. The most successful companies are those able to establish channels and processes that allow R&D and engineering teams to tap into ideas from academia. For example, a recent analysis conducted by Elsevier suggests good correlation between change in share price between 1993 and 2013 and the share of company patents citing scientific literature. (Source: September 2015 ICIS Chemical Business, Special Report Innovation.)

“Scientific literature, both individual papers and resources that combine the data from individual papers play[s] a big and important role... I think this is the information that allows you to justify use of one material or another, it allows you to stand on the shoulders of others to rapidly iterate some sort of design and getting to something that you can start manufacturing and start using. It’s critical to have access to literature and it’s a tremendous time saver instead of having to try to reinvent things or recapitulate the work of others.”

– ROGER NARAYAN Chair of ASM International’s Emerging Technologies Awareness Committee and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at University of North Carolina and North Carolina State

The business challenge—and opportunity—for today’s companies is to find and vet ideas from academic research that fit both customers’ needs and business objectives.

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2013 Corning advertisement for Gorilla Glass

P&G’s NODAX™, “plastic made from nature”

Often, however, “game­changing” ideas are just that—ideas. Capturing commercial value from breakthrough innovations is a relatively long­term endeavor, as they may have little proven practical value or lack feasibility for mass production.

In addition to “breakthrough innovations,” the wealth of insights from academic research also helps companies to pursue incremental innovations—perhaps smaller steps, but more actionable and commercially viable within a shorter time period.

The business challenge—and opportunity—for today’s companies is to find and vet ideas from academic research that fit both customers’ needs and business objectives. And it’s worth it, as innovation done right can play a direct role in improving financial performance.

THREE LESSONS TO FUEL INNOVATION IN MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERINGInnovation by its nature is difficult. Let’s look at what have arisen as key learnings for those pursuing successful commercial innovation.

MATERIALS SCIENCE INNOVATION RESULTS FROM CROSSING SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE AND INDUSTRY BOUNDARIES

Truly new materials often come from outside companies’ traditional fields of focus. For example, in the 1960s, Corning was able to create a tougher, scratch­resistant glass by borrowing a water treatment technology.

Minerals have long been removed from water by exchanging ions between a resin and the water. (The concept of ion exchange was discovered by research chemists back in 1850 and published in an early journal.) Corning immersed glass in a bath of hot potassium salt to exchange the smaller sodium ions inside the glass with the larger potassium ions, making the glass stronger and more crack­resistant. When this

“muscled glass” was made thinner in the 2000s, it found a home in the new iPhone, and is now popularly known as Gorilla Glass.

In another example of cross­discipline innovation, the US Navy commissioned university researchers to find new materials that could help keep troublesome bar­nacles off of ship hulls. The researchers found that the structure of shark skin was uniquely “slippery” to shed any attachments. They created an artificial version of shark skin in the lab. While it has yet to be applied to ships, it was found to be particularly adept at keeping bacteria off of medical devices like catheters. In creating this new material and applying it to a specific end­market, researchers crossed disciplines from metallurgy to biology to biomedical engineering. [Source: Elsevier case study, R&D Solutions: Lessons from the Field: The Value of Interdisciplinary Research Ships, Sharks, and Staphylococcus]

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“The more innovative —the more breaking-the-mold —the innovation is, the less likely we are to figure out what it is really going to be used for.”

– Robert Friedel, Technology Historian at the University of Maryland, quoted in the 12/22/2014 issue of New Yorker Magazine

The cardiovascular stent is a rather new medical device for preventing blockages near the heart. It evolved through metallurgy innovations resulting in metals that are flexible within closely defined limits and innovative polymers that allow for the continu­ous, careful delivery of medicines into the blood to prevent blockages. This life­saving technology is based on advanced materials from two different disciplines.

As an example of incremental innovation, Procter & Gamble has begun replacing its oil­derived plastic detergent bottles with a new ‘biorenewable’ polymer made from corn and sugar beets. This new material uses a renewable resource and is produced with less energy. To solve what was traditionally a chemical problem, the company applied advances from agriculture and biology to reduce its carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuels.

INNOVATORS MUST BE ABLE TO SEE BEYOND THE MESSY, RANDOM DATA TO GRASP THE CONNECTIONS AND THEMES

Successful innovators spot things that other people miss. Advances in materials science often result from “connecting the dots” of two seemingly unrelated findings. It’s a critically important ability, but the sheer volume of information and data available today makes this even more difficult. Researchers are buried with an avalanche of content not only on their current technologies, but also anything related (no matter how distantly). The challenge of keeping up can negatively impact the researcher’s ability to make connections.

“Good researchers search many databases,” shares John Creighton, Former Worldwide R&D Director for Advanced Refining Technologies for the Chevron and Grace Joint Venture, “They’re looking at what’s happening in different technical meetings. They’re doing patent searches. They’re looking in global databases. They’re looking on websites for companies in China, Europe, and United States. They’re searching on many things and, for example, in catalysis, it’s not just cataly­sis. A researcher is also looking at what’s happening in physical chemistry or what’s happening in related areas such as organic chemistry journals, and different types of ceramics. It’s throwing out a broad net, trying to get all the information you can, and then looking for two things that connect together and they give you a clue — that maybe if you combine those two, or do it in a different way, maybe you’ll be able to use it in a particular application that nobody has thought about before.”

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THE INABILITY TO COMMERCIALIZE IS THE KEY ROADBLOCK TO USING NEW MATERIALS DISCOVERIES MADE IN UNIVERSITY LABS

Academic researchers produce thousands of new materials each year. The vast majority, however, are measured in micrograms. Why? The ability to simply produce tiny quanti­ties of something that has never been made before is sufficient for academic research & reporting. It’s also the job of companies—not academic researchers—to successfully create large quantities.

Experience has shown that commercializing a new material is a lengthy process. Take pure aluminum. It was first made in tiny amounts by chemist Friedrich Wöhler in 1827, but wasn’t mass­produced until it was used in the manufacture of WWI airplanes some 90 years later.

Chemist Jöns Jakob Berelius first isolated silicon in 1824, yet semiconductors were not produced in quantity for over one hundred years.

In 2004, Soviet­born physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov published an academic paper on the first two­dimensional material ever discovered: a layer of carbon just one atom thick, called graphene. Amazingly, electrons flow across it 200 times faster than on silicon. A nearby electric field can control conductivity. So the world grew excited about graphene’s ability to supplant silicon in future computer chips. Geim and Novoselov won a Nobel Prize for this new miracle material, and tens of thou­sands of graphene­based patents have been written. But despite the billions of dollars spent around the world, no company has fully commercialized graphene (yet).

For Dr. Roger Narayan, Chair of ASM International’s Emerging Technologies Awareness Committee, gaining a landscape view of research developments is particularly useful. “It’s important to have a mix of top­level information, plus very precise information on particular topics to understand not only what other people are doing, but in the wider field what other people are doing in the various specific areas that you are working in. It’s important to be able to gauge the trends in the area, where people have use for the materials and the devices you are making, and where complementary or competitive technologies are developing.”

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This difficulty to commercialize new technologies has been graphically described in the “Hype Cycle.”

The “Innovation Trigger” occurs when the academic researcher discovers an exciting new material. Company and media interest rapidly increases, as new uses are excitedly discussed. There is an inevitable “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” as the hype builds to a climax. The bubble bursts when companies realize that commercialization is difficult and very slow—leading to the “Trough of Disillusionment.” But usually some com­panies persevere and are able to make the new material in greater quantities, and at lower (feasible) prices—the “Slope of Enlightenment.” Finally, there is the “Plateau of Productivity” where companies are actually making a profit from the new material.

Switching gears to the current state of materials science, we can adapt the Hype Cycle to promising materials innovations.

“New alloys typically take 10 years and many millions of poundsto develop for operational components. We simply couldn’t do this work without Rolls­Royce. For the best part of two decades we’ve had a collaboration that links fundamental materials research through to industrial application and commercial exploitation.”

– DR. HOWARD STONE OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVESITY Director of the Rolls­Royce University Technology Centre, as quoted in the July 2015 Elsevier SciTech Connect article Engineering Atoms Inside the Jet Engine: The Great British Take Off

HYPE CYCLE FOR EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

TIME

EXPE

CTA

TIO

NS

Innovation Trigger

Peak of Inflated

Expectations

Trough of Disillusionment

Slope ofEnlightenment

Plateu ofProductivity

Source: Hype Cycle Special Report, Gartner, 2015

HYPE CYCLE FOR NEW MATERIALS

TIME

EXPE

CTA

TIO

NS

Innovation Trigger

Peak of Inflated

Expectations

Trough of Disillusionment

Slope ofEnlightenment

Plateu ofProductivity

Hypothetical adaptation of the Hype Cycle for materials science innovations

Shark Film

Jahn­Tellermetals

Graphene

Bio­basedMaterials

Enterprise3D Printing

Polymer MatrixComposites

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Scientists recently announced a brand new state of matter, a combination insula­tor/superconductor/metal/magnet, called “Jahn­Teller metals.” Japanese academic researchers were able to force “buckyballs” of carbon into a new, crystalline structure with the unusual simultaneous properties of Jahn­Teller metals. This new state of matter could lead to the development of high temperature superconductors, allowing dramatically cheaper energy production.

Shark film remains an exciting idea, with rising expectations and industry awareness. So both Jahn­Teller metals and Shark film are in the “Innovation Trigger” stage.

Graphene has passed the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” as current industry articles cite the difficulties and frustration that companies have run into while attempting to produce the new miracle material.

Bio­based materials, in the early stages of mass quantity production, are exiting the “Trough of Disillusionment.”

Enterprise 3D printing is actually making money for some companies, so it is on the “Slope of Enlightenment.”

Finally, polymer matrix composites have been fully commercialized into many high­volume products, and have achieved the “Plateau of Productivity.”

THE FOUR PATHS THAT COMPANIES TAKE TO LEVERAGE LEADING-EDGE ACADEMIC RESEARCHTo identify a promising new material or application for commercial products, corporate R&D engineers and scientists must tap into the innovations originating in academia. To do so, there are four paths their companies can take:

1. making a direct connection to specific university researchers,

2. using university spin­offs,

3. hiring technology scouting consultants, and

4. synthesizing insights from academic publications.

Large industries and companies often opt for the Direct ConnectionThis approach includes identifying engineering and physical science professors in key areas of interest and establishing contractual working relationships, including detailed expectations for intellectual property (IP) ownership. Often, the company receives exclu­sive rights to commercialize the output from the academic research team in return for financial support in researching and developing the idea.

These direct connections often last for several years and require a long­term view.

Two automotive industry stories illustrate the direct connection. In the 1990’s, a leading automotive supplier wanted to create more appealing and functional “headliners,” the interior ceiling of a car. At the time, materials couldn’t be made in the complex and pleasing shapes delivered from the designers. So company researchers did some dig­ging and found Professor Taylan Altan, a metal forming expert at Ohio State University. He taught them how to alter their aluminum and steel sheets so they could be bent into customized shapes. This innovation resulted in the evolution of headliners that create the impression of space, and contain superior lighting, storage, buttons, DVD screens and other features.

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For many years, Ford has worked with leading universities—including the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of Illinois and Imperial College of London among others—to gain a fundamental understanding of automotive materials at the atomic level. This work helped Ford engineers to build an extensive database for cast aluminum alloys, and to successfully develop and validate computational modeling to simulate the linkages between thermal processing and the resulting microstructure of aluminum alloys. Use of the database facilitates accurate predictions of the materials’ local mechanical properties and the durability of cast engine components composed of the alloys.

The analytical power of ICME delivers valuable insights into how a design can be adjusted to ensure the lightest and most durable weight at the lowest cost. Today, the knowledge gained in metallurgy, physics, mechanics and the computational models for aluminum alloys has been extended to other materials and processes as Ford seeks the competitive advantage in manufacturing lightweight, durable, and energy­efficient vehicles.

Another example of fruitful direct connection between a company and academic researchers is the Rolls Royce University Technical Center (UTC), formed to help the company address the demand for better performance and reduced emissions from jet engines. The UTC is a £50m strategic partnership funded by Rolls­Royce, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the universities of Birmingham, Swansea, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and Imperial College London.

The UTC research team has focused on delivering the best possible performance from existing nickel­based superalloys used in jet engine turbine blades, as well as designing new superalloys for the future.

As of 2015, the team had 12 patents with Rolls Royce.

A variation of direct connection is the consortium, where several companies will jointly sponsor a university’s researchers. This is common in the larger industries, like oil & gas and chemicals. The cost for each company is less, but exclusivity is missing, given that industry competitors often are in the consortium. This path is reserved for difficult, fundamental materials science challenges that all companies face.

A recent example of the consortium approach is the early 2015 announcement by Purdue University of the Indiana Manufacturing Institute, a 62,000 square foot research facility that will engage Purdue faculty and graduate students in developing manufacturing technology for more energy­efficient vehicles, compressed gas storage and wind energy systems. Slated for opening in early 2016, the Indiana Manufacturing Institute is funded by pledges from industry, states and universities as well as the Department of Energy.

Growth of the connections between academia and industry appears to be slowly increasing. There are increasing numbers of “technology transfer” offices in universi­ties, dedicated to obtaining some return on investment from the institution’s academic research spending. [Source: Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest, Stephen Merrill and Anne­Marie Mazza, National Research Council of the National Academies, 2011]

Academic research successes have spawned University Spin-offs Academic entrepreneurship has expanded greatly in the past twenty years. Materials science and engineering is one of the most fertile fields for professors to create small companies that sell innovations conceived in the university lab. Universities are moving from their traditional roles of research, teaching, and knowledge dissemination to a more advanced role of creating spin­offs and promoting academic entrepreneurship (Lerner, 2004).

“With the proliferation of technologies and the growing complexity of products and services, it no longer seems possible for any company, as large as it may be, to innovate alone, using only internal tech scouts”

– MICHAËL HADDAD President, X Open Innovation, Technical Advisor in charge of innovation, research, higher education and clusters for Alain Rousset, President of the Aquitaine Regional Council

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Materials science spin­offs serve two purposes: (Tattnaik and Pandey, 2014)

1. They seek to commercialize highly uncertain inventions, often because no one else has the confidence or motivation.

2. They ensure the continued involvement of the people who know the inventions the best—the inventors.

Universities favor spin­offs because they allow highly talented faculty to supplement their university salaries, which in turn increases the university’s retention of these valuable employees. The university also stands to benefit from potential income from licensing of spin­off innovations.

These factors underscore why university spin­offs are on the rise, but also keep in mind that it’s difficult for a university spin­off to be a success. The scientists and engineers behind the innovation may lack the financial and business management acumen needed to grow a company, and relatively low percentages of spin­offs receive venture capital funding. In recent years, there have been efforts on behalf of universities to help fund spin­offs and/or connect their academic researchers with business experts to address these potential barriers.

Nanofiber Solutions is a recent example of a successful materials science spin­off comes from Ohio State University. Researchers there developed a process to create molecule­sized nanofibers capable of producing a 3D structure that mimics that of the brain. They then used this artificial environment to successfully study the behav­ior of cancer cells OUTSIDE the body, and to test potential drugs. Later, the spin­off designed a synthetic trachea that was successfully implanted into a human patient.

From the perspective of a company, a spin­off can be a great way to adopt a brand new material. Companies are able to work with experts, the people who invented the new material, and they often sign an exclusive license, which gives them a competitive advantage.

However, a spin­off typically offers just one technology, so spin­off selection becomes critical. And, as noted previously, university researchers typically have no experience with the tough commercialization task, so companies typically do most of the heavy lifting when working with spin­offs.

Matchmaking between company needs and researcher expertise can deliver the required technology Consulting ExpertiseUniversity researchers are creating thousands of new materials every year, but the majority of these have no identified commercial relevance. Company researchers recognize that incorporating new materials is critical to new product success, but they lack the time and ability to screen the myriad university advancements to pick the ones that best meet their needs. Technology scouting consultants have grown to fill this gap. These consultants are “matchmakers,” connecting promising new university creations with relevant companies.

In a November, 2014 ParisTech Review, author Michaël Haddad cites the need for companies to scout technology to find the right fit and partnership opportunities, and depending on the company and its resource structure, internal or external scouting processes can be the best fit.

One example of this relatively new breed of experts is VorteQ Consulting. They have helped companies identify the best source for biomedical implants, photovoltaic materials, surface coating technologies, nuclear material detectors, turbine blades and rare earth mineral production.

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Consulting firm Arup has materials specialists help new product designers navigate the complex world of breakthrough materials. They offer insight into the implications of new materials on form, function, durability, cost and performance. Recent projects include new types of stadium seating, industrial lighting, miniature gardens and a rainwater collections system.

Finally, providers like Material ConneXion help companies to find the new material that transforms products, brands and companies. For example, they helped Puma switch from the traditional shoe box packaging to a much more environmentally sensitive (and stylish) bag. They helped BMW design the world’s first fabric covered car. They found a new material that made headlamps more durable, washable and comfortable.

This approach to finding targeted expertise is appealing and has been on the rise. A 2013 survey of 125 CEOs of large corporations showed that 82% agreed that they were increasing their innovation activities that utilize outside firms. (Source: http://www.prescouter.com/2013/10/open­innovation­on­the­rise)

However, company R&D staff see some big drawbacks to working with consultants. A key potential barrier is paying the high price of consulting up front, given the uncer­tainty of success through the long and risky commercialization process. Another potential concern is that consultants may focus on selling the technologies in their portfolio over solutions that would be the true best fit for the company.

To help ensure the ROI from an investment in technology scouting, companies should involve their cross­functional teams in a collaborative work flow at each step in evaluat­ing the new technology. This can prevent investing resources to fund a path that may turn out to be a dead end for commercialization.

Valuable ‘applied’ research and engineering insights pulled from online databases and work flow solutions facilitate a rich and self-directed learning pathOnline access to the latest thinking and databases can fuel both organic innovation from a company’s R&D or engineering team and the previously described pathways to connecting with experts in the pursuit of breakthrough innovation.

Industry innovators can dive into the work of leading­edge academic thinkers, right at their desks, by accessing online research and tools founded upon a content base of academic publications. This usually is the first, best path to discovering new materials, as researchers can focus specifically on the technologies they want to explore. There are no contracts to write (as with direct connection). There are no companies to vet (as with spin­offs). There is no high upfront project­based expense commitment (as with consultants).

Searching academic research publications allows the company researcher the flexibil­ity to control the process and find what they need to deliver innovative new products or applications. An example of such “in­house innovation” is the Procter & Gamble Nodax™ biorenewable bottle material that we cited earlier in this paper.

Online research papers and articles can also help to identify researchers for consult­ing or collaboration (direct connection), new companies for partnership (spin­offs), or companies that are conversant in a target technology (consultants). By ’standing on the shoulders’ of existing science, industry researchers can uncover insights that help them along their own path to innovation.

R&D and engineering teams can use academic research resources to inform their inno­vation process from early discovery through product refinement and launch:

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Direct Connection

University Spin-off

Consulting Expertise

Online Information Resources

WHY DO IT

• Long­term relationships with experts in the field allow cross­pollination of industry and academic perspectives to drive innovation

• Can receive exclusive rights to commercialize output

• Companies able to work directly with experts who invented a new material

• Can receive exclusive rights to commercialize output

• Companies can help promote academic entrepreneurship

• Connects companies with relevant, promising new university creations

• Saves companies resources in finding targeted expertise

• Flexible, self­directed access to insights about global developments across disciplines and promising innovations

• Immediate access to infor­mation and decision support tools for risk mitigation

• Can help identify researchers or companies for partnership

• Puts analysis in the hands of internal experts who have fuller understanding of tech­nical and business challenges

GOOD TO KNOW

• With consortia: Lack of exclusivity for IP rights

• Best for organizations with high commitment on a specific technology or focus area

• Partner selection is critical because a spin­off typically focuses on one technology

• Academics may not have the needed business management expertise to drive growth

• High project­based expense up front

• Consultants may focus on the technologies they know versus the best solution for the company

• Best for organizations sup­porting multiple technology focus areas and projects

FOUR PATHS TO LEVERAGING ACADEMIA FOR INNOVATION

• Landscape view of research trends and identification of potential research part-ners: An abstracts & citations database that contains the subject, title and author can be quickly searched to identify the “hot topics” within any technological field. The same goes for identifying the researcher who is cited the most as well as the organi­zations the experts are affiliated with.

• Focused technical research and analysis: Once a specific technology is targeted, data culled from specific full­text academic resources can be used to further analyze the technical applicability and feasibility of a new material or application. In addi­tion, sometimes it is necessary to go deeply into chemical structures and chemical reactions in order to fully understand a new material. The goal is to identify materials science technologies that are both relevant to the company, and promising for commercialization.

• Product and process design and development: When the development phase is entered, and the time comes to apply a new material to a specific application, online technical reference information and materials and chemical substance databases can be used to identify target specifications and find design and development guidance.

• Time and cost efficiencies into getting innovations to market: Online research and decision­support tools deliver access to critical data and technology solutions, best practices and insights to help companies mitigate risk and optimize their go­to­market strategy.

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SUMMARYInnovation is critical to a company’s success, and materials are the lifeblood of techno­logical innovation.

There’s been a shift in recent years, with the academic sector filling the innovation research vacancy left by shuttered corporate­based labs. Academic research accounts for more than half of all basic research conducted in the U.S.

With so much activity and the increasing speed of discovery, industry can most effec­tively innovate in materials science by taking a broad view and envisioning connections across the boundaries of scientific discipline and seemingly disparate research findings.

There are, however, barriers to bridging the gap between new materials resulting from academic research and successful commercialization of a product or process. The most notable are the ability to prove industry application and produce the new material in the quantities and efficiencies needed to meet business objectives.

To effectively bridge innovation with successful commercialization, companies can take a variety of paths to leverage leading­edge academic research. These include connecting directly with researchers, working with a university spin­off and employ­ing technology scouts to connect to the most relevant experts and materials. The most ubiquitous and flexible path is direct access to the large and growing online repository of academic research and databases. Self­directed searching of the latest developments can fuel both in­house innovation and identification of experts and companies for possible collaboration.

Elsevier R&D Solutions explore the different ways that online academic resources and databases can help R&D and engineering teams discover promising new materials and applications:

Developing a landscape view of research trends and identification of potential partners: • Scopus® is the largest scientific intel­

ligence solution of peer­reviewed literature, with 20,000 scientific journals, 100,000 books and 7,000,000 conference proceedings that uses smart analysis tools to discover key opinion leaders, benchmark against competition, track research impact and monitor trends. Materials science topics include nano, photonics, synthetic biol­ogy, crystallography, energy conversion, composites and biomedical.

Delving into the latest developments and technologies: • ScienceDirect® offers integrated online

access to the most validated journals and books across all scientific disciplines ensuring researchers stay informed and be more effective in bringing new materials technologies to market. The new Materials Today journal is specifically focused on promising new materials that have passed the “proof of concept” stage.

• Reaxys® provides comprehensive support and fast answers for analyzing chemical structures and reaction pathways, with a deeply indexed, structured data­base including ~500 million published experimental facts covering more than 60 million compounds. R&D chemists and engineers can choose search methods, including structure or key word search­ing, and Reaxys extracts and relates chemical structures, reactions, proper­ties and procedures from core chemistry journals and patents.

Informing product and process design and development: • Knovel® includes best practice insights,

interactive equations, graphs and tables, as well as material and substance proper­ties data, supporting users in developing requirements and designs for the construction, mass implementation and commercial production of new products and processes.

To learn more about trends, challenges and opportunities impacting the world of chemicals and materials, visit: elsevier.com/createwhatsnext.

Scopus® ,ScienceDirect®, Reaxys® and Knovel® and are registered trademark of Elsevier B.V. Copyright© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.