Shell presentation to the Dyson School of Design Engineering.
How industry and academia collaborate to design new products.
Abstract: Academia and industry often work hand in hand to design and develop new products. This effort has the potential to take fundamental research from the university laboratory to the consumer; however the steps involved in taking an idea from the laboratory to the consumer may not always seem entirely obvious.
Michael Parkes, a fuels scientist in Shell, will give an overview of some of the innovation processes used by Shell, and how the company collaborates with universities and other partners to design and develop new products. Michael will compare two examples, specifically retail fuels (which are a mass volume, low margin consuming facing product, which can be difficult to differentiate), and catalysts (which are specialist, high margin, business-to-business products).Using his own career as a backdrop, Michael will discuss how the skills he learnt at Imperial College have helped him in a commercial R&D role.
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