IBM Ireland Lab – Innovation Project Office
Dr. Pat O’Sullivan
Chief Scientist & IBM STSM
Innovation Project Office
IBM Ireland Lab
patosullivan@ie.ibm.com
Science with Excellence & Impact
The success of Industry-Academic Relations in Ireland
Case Study - IBM
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Wed 25th Feb, 2015
Brief Introduction : Dr. Pat O’Sullivan

Chief Scientist for Innovation Project Office @ IBM Ireland Lab (1,750 engineers)

Adjunct Professor at University of Limerick & Waterford Institute of Technology

10+ years partnering with Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland,
Industrial Development Authority & Universities across Ireland

Enjoyed dozens of collaborative R&D projects over the years with DCU & other IRL Universities

450+ filed patents, dozens of published papers, several awards/prizes/medals from R&D work
My Personal Passion : Science with “Impact & Excellence” and contributing to the R&D &
Economic Success of Ireland.INC

© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
IBM – DCU – Research Brazil Ireland (RBI)
IBM’s relationship with Dublin City University goes back many many years :





DCU has forged a reputation as Ireland's University of Enterprise, through its strong, active links with
academic, research and industry partners both at home and overseas
DCU were very helpful in consulting with the IBM Ireland Lab as we moved from a Manufacturing remit 10+
years back, to a high value R&D exemplar today (in Cloud, Analytics, Mobile, Social, Security)
IBM have hired countless students from DCU over the years, and year on year we count on continuity of
graduates & partnerships with the Univerity for key lab innovation growth plays
IBM and DCU have enjoyed several collaborative partnerships over the years, with several active today
IBM and DCU view initiatives such as RBI as positive to leadership, collaborative R&D and building
partnerships between countries & researchers

The IBM Lab were happy to support 4 RBI students
supervised by DCU in 2013 & 2014

© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Research Brazil Ireland
2013 DCU/IBM Students :



Nina Hanzlikova - Smarter Cities Visual Analytics, supervised by
Miles Turner (DCU) & Renato Cerqueira (IBM)
Lijuan Zhou - Smarter Cities Visual Analytics, supervised by
Cathal Gurrin (DCU) & Renato Cerqueira (IBM)
2014 DCU/IBM Students :




Marko Hans Weber - Optimal Resource Allocation & Scheduling,
supervised by Paolo Guasoni (DCU) & Bruno Flach (IBM)
Dasha Bogdanova - Deep Learning for NLP supervised by
Gareth Jones (DCU) & Cicero dos Santos (IBM)
Impact/Outputs :





Positive relationships and partnerships
POCs built and tested
Paper submissions to IJCAI 2015 & SIGIR 2015
Published paper in Workshop on Irregular Applications: Architectures & Algorithms - IA^3
Other workshop, conference and journal papers making progress
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
The success of Industry-Academic Relations in Ireland
IBM Case Study On Science with Impact & Excellence
Quick thoughts on definition of “Impact”
Quick thoughts on definition of “Excellence”
Quick inside look at how IBM approach achieving both Excellence and Impact
imperatives in conjunction with our partners
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
A few words on “Science with Excellence” – what does this mean ?

My own personal view from 15+ years of joint collaborations :

Successful MSc and PhD graduates (ideally hired in to industry at the end)

Some Journal and Conference papers in high ranking peer review (a responsible balance)

Several patents filed (a filed patent is undeniable evidence of R&D, innovation & novelty)

Addressing a significant problem/challenge of interest to Gov, Industry or Society



Deep & meaningful collaborations between local and international R&S centres with a win-win for all
industry and academic partners
Strength in partnerships and collaboration that gives rise to the above - and continue to grow in strength
and outut following the above
Within Ireland, both Enterrise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland have set a very positive
stage and supporting infrastructure/framework for achieving science with Excellence and Impact

…well evidenced through the various programes, research centres and clusters established across
Ireland, as well as the large number of industry partners involved
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
A few words on “Impact” – directly from our EU leaders in H2020

Jobs and employment growth in Europe

Increased innovation in Europe “originated in EU” leading to EU companies, growth, employment

Spin-outs, Spin-ins, new SMEs, growth in SMEs and MLCs in Europe

Responsible value to exchequer for EU funded R&D

Increased exports from EU to e.g. USA, APAC, etc

Predictability and confidence in economy, employment, finances, lending, growth, etc

Increased leadership, leadership, innovation & competiveness in Europe
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Innovation Project Office(IPO) – IBM Framework for Collaborative R&D






IBM is one of Ireland’s largest employers – circa 4,000 staff across Dublin, Cork, Galway
IPO is the principal IRL Software Group interface to IRL & EU Universities, Gov & Funding Bodies
for Collaborative R&D across 1,750 Staff
IPO Team is both results & impact driven, and measured to this (weekly)
We have enjoyed continued year to year support from our IRL Gov partners – e.g. EI, SFI, IDA
have been both supportive and central to the remit, growth & success of the IBM Irl lab R&D
mission
We have a positive track record of winning bids in IRL Gov Funded Collaborations over 10+ years
At the end of each project we circle back to report on “how we leveraged the investment”

IBM recognize that “continuity in winning” follows “continuity in delivering”
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Some key stats – focusing on the previous 5 years


In EI, SFI and IDA funded collaborations we focus on projects that address national imperatives

Projects are carefully chosen in conjunction with academia, industry and Gov
IBM Lab stats/outputs from the past 5 years :

350% expansion in Ireland - from 500 software engineers to circa 1,750 today

Supported & Mentored SME Spinouts from R&D incubated at the lab

Supported Spin-ins, in turn helping growth/expansion of Ireland Lab Team and our reputation WW

Consecutive year to yeat Full Time job offers to PhDs & MSCs at the end of projects (which we see as
important to the lab’s continued growth, expansion and competitiveness)

750+ patent filings – several jointly filed with University partners that we collaborate with

Dozens of peer reviewed journal and conference papers demonstrating scientific excellence

Stong & positive partnerships with Universities and Industries across Ireland

Active support for Ireland SMEs through leveraging IBM’s Partner World Program
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
The success of Industry-Academic Relations in Ireland
To see Science with Excellence and Impact IBM emphasise 5 key areas :
a)
Spend time in identifying the “right” project and “right” industry and academic leaders
b)
Set and agree start & end TRL expectations up front (next slide)
c)
Set off on a joint IP agreement, in turn making sure that work is truly collaborative with deep and
meaningful collaborative contributions from both Industry and Academia
d)
Guide a responsible balance between student time in the office and in the lab (for applied MSc and PhD
projects we like to see 70% of time in the lab)
e)
Implement a quarterly governance program that encapsulates all stakeholders, and measure “what
we said we would do” against “what we are doing” and map to “what we plan to do” in the next quarter
Albeit this represents a large cost for Industry, this formula has consistently
delivered both execellence and impact results from the lab
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Outset Calibration of TRL start/end goals is pivotal to expectation setting
Commercial
Impact
Typically
Lives Here
IBM
Interests
Cover
TRL
1..9
•
•
Universities
Typically
Vary
Between
1..7
Observation – very few research projects in Europe start out with the start and end TRL
levels set/understood/agreed/promised
We start with this basic Q in collaborative IBM/SFI/EI/University projects – key to setting
expectations and laying a foundation for measuring concrete results
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Innovation Project Office – IBM SWG/University Collaborations

Team Leaders - Led by MBA (team manager) & supported by IBM Lab PhDs

Successful Collaborations over the last 10 years :




20+ Applied Small, Medium & Large R&D Projects – e.g. EI, SFI, LERO, FAME, CVTR, Connect etc
Several spin-ins – in all cases the IP that we jointly develop with our Unversity colleagues is leveraged
internally in some way(s) at the lab (and indeed externally by the University)
University Spinout Companies – 2 recent examples LogEntries, Qualisense
Patents – Circa 1,250 successful Ireland Lab patent filings, with several jointly owned/filed with
Universities (in places where we jointly develop/collaborate we jointly file)

Published Papers - Dozens of journal papers, conference papers, technical white papers

IAB Involvement – Dozens, principaly on IRL, UK, EU, Gov, University, Industry & Academic boards

MSc, PhD, Post Docs – offered FT jobs at the lab
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
We measure yr/yr patent outputs at the Lab
In lots of cases patents are jointy filed with University Partners, in turn protecting
commercial exploitation for Universities, Clients and New SMEs that we help and support
Filed Patents
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Some past & present examples of University “Applied Innovation” projects at the Lab



Log Analytics – Log Correlation Solution to analyse TB logs in Multi-Tenancy Cloud solutions

IBM, UCD, DCU – EI & SFI sponsored partnership

Led to several published papers in peer review

Led to 3 successful PhDs

Led to Logentries private spinout company (core team was incubated at the IBM lab)
Voice/Video QOS – Tooling to instrument Voice/Video for Unified Telephony products

IBM, TSSG & Maynooth - SFI sponsored partnership

Led to 20+ patent filings

Led to several published papers in peer review

Led to 4 applied MSc graduates

Led to Qualisense spinout opportunity that is currently being explored with Enterprise Ireland
Asset Utilization and Efficiency– instrumenting IBM X/P/Z/I capital assets on utilization and efficiency axes
to save IBM $0.5B in capital purchases per annum

IBM, University of Limerick, UCD – EI & SFI sponsored partnership

Led to 20+ patent filings

Led to several published papers in peer review

Led to 2 successful PhDs

Aspirations for a commercial industry solution further down the road
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Closing comments (ref: EU) on Science with Excellence & Impact

Our EU Leaders are now recalibrating EU funding programs to see Impact in H2020






General view is that Framework 5,6,7 was a “Large R” and “Small D” in R&D
We learned that an EU Commission led study highlighted that the value to exchequer & EU taxpayer from
FP7’s multi billion Euro spend was not what was hoped
Owed to this, H2020 is now configured to be far more applied, and impact focused/measured
To see Impact the EU have recognized that consortiums/partnerships need to have a far larger percentage
of projects Industry led & driven, with a discernible focus on dissemination and impact
The key buzz words in EU funded projects today is “Impact” and “Dessimination”
Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland continue to measuring excellence and impact
imperatives in support of demonstrating value to exchequer/taxpayer for €€€ spent

IRL Gov have also been espousing industry led R&D for some time –positive !!

IBM see continuity of this leadership as key to meeting indigenous excellent & impact goals
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation
Dr. Pat O’Sullivan
Chief Scientist & IBM STSM, Innovation Project Office, IBM Ireland Lab
patosullivan@ie.ibm.com
- +353-86-6092002
©
2014 International Business Machines
Corporation
© 2014 International Business Machines Corporation