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Technological Valley of Death
Imagine how the world would look today, if the
greatest technological inventions in history such as
the aeroplane, automobile, TV or the Internet had been
left sitting in research labs and not seeing the light
of manufacturing?
Many potentially
breakthrough ideas failed in the so-called
“Technological Valley of Death” due to a gap that
exists between academic research and industrial
commercialization. This is a great missed opportunity
for economic and social progress; more so in India
today as we struggle to translate laboratory research
into societal value.
The journey of new
technology from research to commercialization goes
through a number of stages (aka LEVELS) of design,
development and scale - up. These TECHNOLOGY READINESS
LEVELS (TRLs) were defined at NASA between the 1970s
and the 1990s to assess the maturity of a technology
or research to enable better and more objective
management of projects.
NASA’s TRLs :-
-
Basic principles observed
-
Technology concept formulated
-
Experimental proof of concept
-
Technology validated in a lab
-
Technology validated in a relevant environment
-
Technology demonstrated in a relevant environment
-
System prototype demonstrated in an operational
environment
-
System complete and qualified
-
System deployed in an operational environment
Large corporations are
able to work at all levels of this scale; but small
and medium sized companies cannot afford the high
investments and different specialized competencies
this approach requires. Hence, smaller companies have
to rely on research conducted elsewhere; and the
natural resources are Universities, Institutional
Academia, public & private research laboratories
(under CSIR and others). |
“At what TRL does academia
transfer technology to industry?”
Academia tends to focus on TRLs
1–4, where new ideas are explored, research conducted
and new solutions invented. Industry needs to generate
income or profit from investments made and hence
prefer to work in TRLs 7–9; where innovation gets
commercialised into manufacturable / saleable products
and services.
Therefore, TRLs 4–7 represent a gap
between academic research and industrial
commercialization. This gap, generally referred to
as the “Technological Valley of Death”
emphasises the fact that many new novel
research work reach TRLs 4–5 and die there.
In India, Transfer of technology
directly from the laboratory to a production plant
results in numerous problems. One limiting factor is
the low strength of R & D personnel in industry and
their inexperience in scaling-up laboratory level
knowledge and practice to a manufacturable know-how.
Problems multiply in medical devices due to mandatory
needs for implementing Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).
We are well aware of this gap and
that few Academic R&D outputs have made it
successfully into the market. For “Atmanirbhar
Bharat” to succeed and make an impact on our
economy, this “VALLEY OF DEATH must be successfully
bridged” on a much larger scale across our vast
country in the current high-tech scenario.
Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute
for Medical Sciences & Technology, Trivandrum has
been an exception. Between 1987 to 2000, the Institute
successfully developed over 24 high-risk medical
devices in their laboratories and 16 of them were
successfully commercialised with transfer of know-how
to industry.
So what did Chitra do, that was
different? How did it achieve this significant success
in the very challenging area of Medical implants and
high risk devices ? |
