Seminars

IIPD: an invitation to work together

On 15 December, in the Great Hall of the JINR Scientists' Club, an AYSS seminar was held, at which Head of Innovations and Intellectual Property Department (IIPD) Igor Lensky spoke.

"Involvement of young scientists and specialists in the innovation agenda of the Institute, in its development is a necessary condition for success in this area," the speaker started his speech. "The purpose of my participation in today's seminar is to arouse your interest in this field of JINR activity by presenting several stories that would be both an introduction to the "innovation context" and more importantly, an invitation to close collaboration."

There are a lot of issues that should be discussed first, having addressed them "on the shore": what we will consider innovations at JINR by definition, how to properly stimulate innovation activity, what are the best organizational forms... It is difficult to do in the framework of one meeting and this is the first task for a joint assault.

At different times, JINR has used a variety of innovative development formats and in many cases has been one of the first in the country. This includes obtaining, in competition with leading financial institutions, the license No. 1 for management of mutual funds (collective investments in high technologies) and a joint centre for technology transfer with a high-tech holding company and the first nanocentre and spin-off companies. In some cases, indirect but crucial results have been obtained, such as, the establishment and development of SEZ in Dubna. In others, as in the case of equipping the FLNR Nanolab, they are quite tangible. In the third cases, the use of the appropriate format at that time seemed to be the only way to implement specific projects, but later (including with the positive changes in financing of the scientific programme of Institute) it lost its relevance. In all cases, it was both a significant experience and promotion of the team. And some capacity, for instance, experience in collective investment, may be used in the near future.

Today, the flagship project of the innovation agenda of the Institute is the JINR Innovation Research Centre in the field of nuclear technologies. The R&D infrastructure of the Centre consists of several large units, joined together with the topics of nuclear and radiation medicine, radiation materials science: ARIADNA - user infrastructure based on the NICA complex; a complex based on the DC-140 cyclotron (testing of electronic components, radiation materials science, track membranes); a radiochemical laboratory of the 1st class and an accelerator for the production of isotopes for nuclear medicine; superconducting proton cyclotron - a pilot plant for medical centres.

What are the special features of this format? Behind each of the Centre's units there is a corresponding laboratory. Each one is an accretion project of a successful area of the JINR's scientific programme. At the same time, the infrastructure under development and the programme of applied work of the Centre represent a new qualitative level of innovative research and development.

And here, we can suggest the second task for joint work: in-depth development of the integration concept is required that will join the units of infrastructure and research programmes of the Centre into a single organism.

The Seven-Year Plan and the Strategic Plan for the Long-Term Development of JINR provide for other formats of work in the innovation field. This includes the development of success stories and medium-term interlaboratory projects in LifeScience, EcoEnergy, BigData and QT, as well as carbon-free research and technologies, R&D in the field of hydrogen energy.

An example of a project implementing the potential of an established success story is the collaboration with the team that constructed the unique electron beam CT scanner. The proposal of G. A. Shelkov and his colleagues for a tomograph detector unit based on hybrid assemblies of semiconductor matrix sensors and the corresponding ASICs not only proved to be an interesting response to the request of developers to find an alternative to the initially used solution, but also opens up the possibility of a promising spectroscopic operation mode with registration of single photons.

How are innovation activities organized at the Institute today? Firstly, innovations are no exception here, everything meaningful and lively happens in laboratories and all results and achievements are obtained in them. Secondly, with regard to major projects and initiatives, primarily the Innovation Centre, JINR Directorate plays a special role at all stages, including the configuration of individual units of the project, the scientific and technical design of specific facilities, development of a partnership strategy for establishment and subsequent use of innovation infrastructure.

It is important that today, there are specialized departments in the laboratories with direct responsibility for innovation: Department No. 5 of Scientific and Methodological Research and Innovation at VBLHEP, the Research and Innovation Department of DLNP and the FLNR Centre for Applied Physics.

Finally, IIPD. The department was established as a result of the merger of two divisions: the Technology Transfer Group and the Division of Licensing and Intellectual Property. The "innovative core" of IIPD, first of all, consists of representatives of laboratories. Today, they are O.V.Belov (VBLHEP), N.S.Dmitriev (FLNR), I.V.Koshlan (LRB), K.S.Bunyatov and A.S.Kuznetsov (DLNP), I.F.Lensky ( FLNP), P.V.Permyakov (coordinates interaction with SEZ).

The Innovation Centre is a priority project for IIPD. This is both a serious challenge and very interesting tasks of attracting industrial partners, project content and development of an integration concept. The key function of IIPD is a service providing a kind of stewardship for innovation activities: development of optimal approaches, work patterns, their implementation and customization, consulting and support for project teams in all aspects and at all stages of preparation and implementation of developments. The work of the department should also result in new application projects, their "phase transition" to innovative projects (due to the involvement of industrial partners in them). The most significant area of work is interaction with development institutions - SEZ, Skolkovo, the Bortnik Foundation, ASI and others.

Further, Igor Lensky made further discussion of tasks for joint work.

"Hand assembling" projects. "I have a deep conviction that innovative projects, I don't know whether it will be an application story or successful technology transfer, can be "assembled" by those who are immersed in the relevant field of research, with the participation of our department as far as finding the right partner from industry or applied science is concerned," the speaker noted. "This "hand assembling" format is efficient and can contribute to the generation of the project flow. What are we talking about? For instance, in publications on neutron radiography, there is mention of research on contour heat pipes. It is easy enough to think that such devices that serve for heat removal in various systems (electronics, space technology...) are an ideal object for neutron radiography: a sealed metal tube with a neutron contrasting liquid and vapour inside. It was not difficult to find interested partners (Company Therkon®, IPM NAS of the Republic of Belarus, Institute of Thermal Physics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Interesting results have been obtained and published. The story is waiting to be continued with putting IBR into operation. There are other examples where the search for a partner turned out to be efficient: the use of the tagged neutron method in the topic of carbon polygons, in climate projects to determine carbon in soil; involvement of industrial partners in research at the new X-ray facility at FLNP, others. But the key is the debut idea of the project/development and the realization of who is missing for its implementation. It can't be implemented without you."

Integration initiatives. "Detector Center". This is another genre in which the involvement of JINR young scientists and specialists would be useful. It can be illustrated by the example of detector topics, an area that seems to be potentially successful in technology transfer. It has been observed that scientific groups solving similar problems are not fully aware of each other's results, competencies and equipment. It is suggested that the situation should be changed for the benefit of the cause. The motivation of IIPD seems obvious: to be ready to promptly and substantively respond to the request from an industrial partner about the capabilities of the Institute. Probably, specialists should also be interested in a single knowledge base in this area, in access to the unified (information and at the level of horizontal links) infrastructure, competences, information about reliable suppliers, others, Aleksey Kuznetsov (DLNP) has started to design such a "map" according to DLNP projects. New interested people need to be involved in this work.

Crash course. This is probably the simplest format of interaction - seminars that immerse you into a particular area of innovation. As a pilot, we can offer a workshop on "Intellectual Property in Questions and Answers". There are many misconceptions, examples of misinterpretation and misuse of basic concepts, such as copyright and exclusive rights, joint exclusive right, use and disposal of rights to the results of intellectual activity... The joint development of a list of relevant issues and their discussion at the workshop is a natural next step.

This workshop is a rather concise introduction to the JINR innovation agenda and an introduction to IIPD. "Assembling" new projects, investors, R&D partners, marketing research, risks, contacts with manufacturers, the optimal strategy for protecting intellectual property... There is a lot of work to be carried out but it promises to be interesting, as it should be in the case of innovation by definition.

Material prepared by Galina MYALKOVSKAYA