UIDP Conversations

Brad Lukanic, principal and CEO, CannonDesign, on sparking innovation across the organization and collaborating with smart clients to support their endeavors.

Quincy Quick is the associate vice president for research and sponsored programs and chief research officer at UIDP member organization Tennessee State University. Tennessee State, along with Fisk University and Meharry Medical College, is a local co-host for HBCU Engage, which will be held April 18-19, 2023, in Nashville. In a recent interview, Quick shared his vision for Tennessee State's research enterprise and why he supports HBCU Engage.

Michael Oakes, interim vice president for research at the University of Minnesota, shares some of the "secret sauce" behind its culture of entrepreneurship and what it takes to achieve $1 billion in external research investment.

Eric Corey Freed, senior vice president, sustainability at CannonDesign. Architect, speaker, author and thought-leader in deep green buildings, je joins UIDP Conversations to discuss building sustainability into every design to enhance health, productivity, and societal impact.

Lubab Sheet-Davis, vice president of strategy and innovation at Lam Research, joins UIDP Conversations to discuss Lam's work to keep innovation humming during the pandemic, the importance of visible female leadership in the tech industry, and how to push innovation through education, innovation infrastructure, and culture.

Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, Senior Vice President of Research Networks at Elsevier, on the role of triple helix collaboration to advance science and technology and drive economic gains. He also considers how data can help research organizations identify strengths, weaknesses, and common ground for better partnerships.

Nathan Utz, vice president in Purdue University's Office of Industry Partnerships, speaks to his new role, repositioning university-industry relations in the midst of a pandemic, and the critical importance of holistic engagement.

Innosight's Ned Calder and Freddy Solis are pros at helping large organizations drive innovation and transformational change. In this podcast moderated by Alan Blatter of Edgewell Personal Care, they share research and observations about success elements every organization should include in their R&D strategy.

Charles Johnson Bay, Senior Vice-President at Booz Allen Hamilton, discusses the digital battlespace and the need for industry & academic partnership for emerging technologies. The fundamental challenge that defense leaders face today is not picking winners, but accurately seeing global technology trends and being able to translate and adapt --because it's not who has the edge this year, or even this month, but this minute that matters.

Natascha Eckert, head of university relations at Siemens, on the elements of mature university-industry partnerships, Siemens' philosophy of managing those relationships, and taking action to promote women in tech leadership--not just talking about it.

Malcolm Skingle, GlaxoSmithKline's director, academic liaison, discusses the critical role of industry-academic collaboration to address the world's big scientific challenges and what it takes for industry-academic collaborations to succeed.

Chris Austin, director of the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, on the power of collaboration for translating basic science into the cures and therapies that benefit society.

David Reed, associate provost and director of research and collections for the Florida museum of natural history at the university of Florida, describes how the university will leverage a $50 million hardware gift from industry partner NVIDIA to expand AI research and development across university programs and extend workforce development training in AI across the state.

Daron Green, Facebook's director of research operations and academic relations, on talent development, industry-based faculty employment, and how partnerships with university-based research broaden technology exploration and the scope of industry innovation.

Cynthia Sweet, the University of Pittsburgh's associate vice chancellor for economic partnerships, on partnership intentionality, building internal and external relationships, and leading through influence rather than authority.

Doug Maughan, office head for NSF's Convergence Accelerator Program,  on flexibility, new topics of research interest, and what happens in that niche between basic research and commercialization.

John Bamforth, director, Eshelman Institute for Innovation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, on what it takes to bring the world's top pharmaceutical researchers and industry leaders in an open-science partnership to ensure we're ready for the next pandemic, the Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Discovery Initiative (READDI). "No one would have wished, of course, for COVID-19 to have become what it is. But in another sense, it really has galvanized people to think in a more collaborative way in order to get these global problems solved."

In this wide-ranging discussion, Matt Ridley--author, journalist, businessman--dives into the role of serendipity and collaboration in innovation, why innovation itself is an "infinite improbability," and how freedom is the necessary element for innovation to flourish.