Lange weg naar valorisatie

“Onze innovaties zijn vaak complexe projecten”, zegt prof.dr. Kees Beenakker, wetenschappelijk directeur van Dimes (Delft Institute of Microsystems and Nanoelectronics). “Dat maakt de technologische en financiële barrières om de markt op te gaan vrij hoog. Maar als het lukt, zoals bij Mapper, dan verover je de wereld.” Overigens is Mapper, het bedrijf dat maskerloze lithografie ontwikkelt voor de chipindustrie, nog geen commercieel succes. Begonnen in 2000, heeft Mapper, goed voor 170 arbeidsplaatsen en 90 patenten, nu drie pilot machines gebouwd. Toch zijn er nog drie innovatiestappen nodig voordat het gestelde doel bereikt is, vertelt Marco Wieland van Mapper. Een tijdpad geeft hij er niet bij.

Ook prof.dr.ir. Lis Nanver van Elektrotechniek, Wiskunde en Informatica (EWI) stelt dat het ontwikkelen van een product voor de markt – in haar geval unieke detectors voor diep ultraviolet licht – meer tijd kost dan de vier jaar die een gemiddelde promovendus ermee bezig is. Innovatie laat zich niet in ritmes van vier jaar persen. Hoogleraren moeten wel bedrijven beginnen, vindt Nanver, maar ze moeten er geen directeur van worden. “Dat is qua tijd niet te combineren.”

“We zijn technici, geen verkopers”, vertelt dr.ing. Leo de Vreede (EWI). Hij ontwikkelde met collega’s Anteverta, een apparaat dat het doormeten van basisstations voor mobiele telefonie drastisch versnelt en verbetert. Voor de ontwikkeling van een bewezen techniek naar een product ben je afhankelijk van banken en klanten. Uiteindelijk maken die ook de dienst uit, aldus De Vreede. Waarom zou je je dat laten welgevallen? “Uit enthousiasme om wat je kunt verbeteren”, zegt De Vreede. Dat zegt ook prof.dr.ir. Ronald Dekker, betrokken bij de ontwikkeling van Pluriomics (een chip om toxiciteit van medicijnen te bepalen). Vier dagen per week werkt hij bij een groot bedrijf, een dag bij de TU. “Een groot bedrijf is vooral bezig met te verzinnen waarom ze bepaalde dingen níet moeten doen. Hier is dat verfrissend anders.”

Aspiring a career at a large multinational, developing an amazing graduation project, or trying to start your own architectural firm, every TU Delft student will face the moment where the task that lies ahead requires more than the competences and skills just acquired at the university.
This moment, which is often seen as a limiting threshold, or a task to outsource, is actually the first moment where complexities of reality collide with the theoretical set up of our academic structures.
The unprecedented challenges of the future, with notions as sustainability and globalization, transcend the efforts of the individual or any profession, and inherently require transdisciplinary approaches.
Last year, as a student of the faculty of architecture, I set up a master project called Urban Emergencies, a study that aims to get a better understanding at the process of redevelopment after natural disaster (www.urbanemergencies.org).
The processes that emerge after a natural disaster, condense the complexities of centuries of development into a short period. Besides the lack of time, tremendous funds, and an abundance of national and international stakeholders further complicate this process; obviously a task that requires more than a single architect, manager, sociologist or whatever professional by himself.
This is why the project we initially proposed, entailed collaborations between the various universities of the Netherlands: lawyers from the University of Maastricht, technicians from the TU Delft, sociologists the University of Amsterdam, and so on. Because it was a pilot project, we realized this initial set up was a bit ambitious, and we decided to attempt to have it accredited as an interfaculty project at the TU Delft alone.
We soon found out, that there is no platform, nor structure for such an approach within the TU Delft, and even if we got such a project ECTS accredited, the required courses at other faculties would make it impossible for students to enroll.
Eventually, getting the project to run within the three different graduation tracks of the faculty of architecture, required a lot of favors and people to turn a blind eye once and a while to get it all done. Not because anyone opposed the plan, but because the current curriculum doesn’t allow such initiative: it was more difficult to get the University’s praise, than that of the United Nations.
Although there is a lot of talk about minors, electives, and cross enrolling, there is no structural platform where students are challenged to collaborate within the TU Delft on global issues.  This is even more remarkable given it is constantly being addressed to at conferences and symposia at the TU Delft.
An example could be taken from MIT, where the best student research proposals each year receive funding according to the amount of different disciplines involved. Not only would such an approach stimulate the inter-disciplinarity at the TU Delft, it would also encourage students to act proactively and competitively during their study. For me this was also the reason to apply at MIT, and I am happy to say I will be continuing my master degree there next year.
For the TU Delft it is time to put their money where their mouth is, and start making inter-disciplinarity a part of the TU Delft way of studying. A start would be to critically analyze the flaws in the current curriculum structure, which make collaborations between faculties, not to mention universities, extremely difficult, and to start actively supporting projects that aim to break through these boundaries in seek of collaboration.
This could start out as a contest for Msc students. Students would be challenged to write a project proposal. The most convincing project, which proves the added value of working interdisciplinary, would then be granted a budget, ects-accrediting (regardless of the study), and the support of a team of appropriate professors from various faculties. Later, this model could be expanded, offering support to several teams a year. The project would become a trademark of the TU Delft; attracting talent from around the world, and producing benchmark research.

Chris de Vries studeert bouwkunde.