UIDP Conversations

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.