International Collaborations in R&D: An Indian Perspective

Chapter 13

International Collaborations in R&D: An Indian Perspective Downloaded by UNIV OF CINCINNATI on March 20, 2016 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): September 2, 2015 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2015-1195.ch013

Sanjeev Katti* and Ajit Sapre Reliance Industries Ltd., Reliance Research & Development Center, Navi Mumbai, India *E-mail: [email protected].

Reliance, one of the largest refining and petro-chemical companies in the world, is undergoing a major transformation with emphasis on research and development to support our businesses. We have embraced the open innovation concept. An integral part of our transformation strategy is sponsored R&D, including collaborations and joint development programs with appropriate Indian and international institutes and universities, National/CSIR Labs, start-up and established companies world-wide. While the U.S. is still the hub of innovation, R&D activities in the Asia Pacific are rapidly increasing. In the changing world, there should be more emphasis on international collaborations so that we can maximize the impact of innovations using the best facilities and the best minds. Yet, there are challenges in international collaborations, such as intellectual property (IP) issues, ownership and exclusivity. In spite of the challenges described above, we are open and committed to seek alliances and collaborate with centers of excellence anywhere in the world. We must do this to efficiently meet the aspirational needs of our growing world.

Introduction As a major and still growing economic power in the world, India is looking at R&D and innovation with emphasis on implementation to make a difference in the lives of aspiring population. More specifically, we at Reliance, one of © 2015 American Chemical Society Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.

Downloaded by UNIV OF CINCINNATI on March 20, 2016 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): September 2, 2015 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2015-1195.ch013

the largest refining and petro-chemical companies in the world, are undergoing a major transformation with emphasis on research and development to support our businesses. We have embraced the open innovation concept. An integral part of our transformation strategy is sponsored R&D, collaborations and joint development programs with appropriate Indian and International Institutes and Universities, National/CSIR Labs, start-up and established companies worldwide. While the U.S. is still the hub of innovation with best eco-system, economic and hence R&D activities seem to be moving from West to East. Almost all major multi-national companies have or are planning to have their R&D centers in China and India. It has been claimed that India produces more scientists and engineers than the U.S. (1). According to World Intellectual Property Indicators for the year 2012, China ranks above the U.S. in both patent applications and application design counts (2). Even in the U.S. universities, more than half the PhDs granted in some engineering fields go to Indians and Chinese nationals (3). Science and engineering is seen as the career choice by the bright and talented young minds in India and China. Another study shows that the number of doctorates awarded in China every year has constantly been increasing since 2002 whereas the U.S. has seen a comparatively smaller rise in the number of doctorates (4). China aims to increase its R&D spending to about 2.5% of its GDP by 2020 from the 1.1% of its GDP in 2013. On the other hand, the spending by the U.S. government has decreased to 0.8% of its GDP which is the lowest it has spent in 40 years. In the changing world, there should be more emphasis on international collaborations so that we can maximize the impact of innovations using the best facilities and best minds. Certainly periodic face-to-face meetings are critical but with the use of advances in telecommunication and video-conferencing, initiating, monitoring and guiding the international joint R&D projects have become easier. Getting U.S. visa for attendance at scientific and business meetings takes a long time for chemical scientists and engineers from India and other developing countries. ACS has consistently brought up this issue with the U.S. government, but more needs to be done. Some of the major challenges in international collaborations are intellectual property (IP) issues, ownership, and exclusivity. Each sovereign country has different patent rules and its own interpretations of the uniform WTO patent regulations. The companies would like to do sponsored research and in some cases get exclusive IP. The technology transfer offices of many universities insist on owning the IP and giving a non-exclusive or regional license to practice the technology. Also, the validity and interpretation of the international agreements is generally governed by the laws of an acceptable neutral third country. For example, an agreement between U.S. and Indian collaborators typically would be governed by the U.K. laws. However, there are some U.S. universities which are unable to agree on any jurisdiction other than their home state per their state laws. This creates unnecessary barriers for international collaborations. We also need to evaluate innovative projects and collaborate with start-up companies, which are typically floated by post-docs and professors in incubation centers with financial support from venture capital (VC) firms. The VC model is effective in the IT and communication industry where the speed of development 130 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


and deployment is relatively fast and the activities are not very capital demanding. Is VC funding the most efficient model for innovation in capital intensive industry such as ours (chemical, petro-chemical, industrial biotechnology, renewable energy, etc.)? In the capital intensive industry, incubation period is long and beyond the time horizons of VC return expectation. It took a few decades to go from the discovery of penicillin to a commercially available antibiotic product. Most of the start-ups have little experience in the scale-up and development process and they severely underestimate the time, cost, and efforts required to commercialize their discovery. Therefore, we need to promote a robust partnership culture between the basic scientists and experienced technology developers in our industry. In spite of several challenges described above, Reliance is open and committed to seek alliances and collaborate with centers of excellence anywhere in the world.

Overview of Reliance As a brief introduction to our company, Reliance is India’s largest private sector enterprise. Our annual revenue is close to about $70 billion and about two-thirds of this revenue comes from exports. In addition, Reliance has a strong balance sheet and is essentially debt-free on net basis. Reliance has two of the world’s largest and most complex refineries. We are able to process crude of any quality, from anywhere in the world, and manufacture various grades of products as per customer requirement. This is attributed to the latest equipment and control strategies that we employ. Our operating cost per barrel is amongst the lowest in the world. Reliance aspires to be amongst the top 50 companies of the world within 3 years. We are investing about $30,000 million across businesses in the next 3 years, while our petrochemical expansion should be completed in the next 2 years. Reliance Jio, which is 4G technology, will be launched all over India next year. We also have a retail business with a couple of thousand stores which will double in the next 3-4 years. So we are expecting to double the revenue in the next 4-5 years with a compounded annual growth rate of 20-25% per year (5). Reliance vision is to promote innovation as one of the drivers for growth. The company has grown so far by licensing technologies, building world scale and world quality plants, running them efficiently, and optimising and increasing their capacity. Now we want to become IP creator by developing our own technology and implementing it to build new plants and manufacture new products. And this is where the Reliance Technology Group which is the R&D arm of Reliance, that I am representing, comes into picture. We are trying to facilitate this jump from IP user to IP creator. Towards that, we have built a new state-of-the-art R&D Center in Navi Mumbai which is an investment of about U.S.$ 100 million. In addition to internal R&D, an integral part of our transformation strategy is sponsored R&D and joint development programs all over the world. We want to collaborate with academic institutes and universities, government and national labs such as CSIR and PNNL, and with start-up and established companies. We 131 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.

are also open to take strategic equity positions in start-ups as long as it fits with our core strategies and businesses.


Why To Collaborate? One important question that arises here is ‘Why to collaborate?’ and the main reason is to simplify or understand the complex nature of any scientific problem. Knowledge and resources from multiple disciplines such as chemistry, biology, and various branches of engineering are required to tackle any major innovative project. Collaboration is important to maximize the use of resources and to get the most out of it. National or international collaborations have become easier because of advances in the communication technology. It is feasible now to initiate, monitor, and execute global team projects in a seamless manner. Let’s take the example of Industrial Biotechnology development. Consider a conceptual bio-refinery. To operate such a complex enterprise, first agricultural scientists will ensure the best biomass output from the available land by exercising the best combination of water, nutrients and other growth inducing factors for the given soil structure, sunlight, and weather. Then mechanical engineers are needed for aggregation, collection, and initial processing of biomass. Then we need biotechnology and enzyme technology expertise to separate the polymers into cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. This can be followed by either a chemical route or a biological route to depolymerize the separated polymers into glucose, xylose, etc. Next, we require molecular biologists, fermentation technologists, and biochemical engineering experts, to obtain specific chemicals from these monomers. We need the aid of genetic engineering to come up with the appropriate organisms which will specifically make the required chemicals with high specificity. Thus chemicals such as ethanol, butadiene, pentene, BTX, FDCA, furfural, phenols, etc. are produced. Further they could be converted to plastics or polymers. This covers just the technical section at research level. To scale it up and commercialize further expertise from various field are required. This example signifies the need to collaborate due to the complexity of the project involved. It has become extremely important to promote this culture to ensure economic and industrial growth in nations.

Basic Research versus Applied Research If we think of typical separation between fundamental or basic research and applied research, we can divide it into four quadrants as described in “Pasteur’s Quadrant” by Donald Stokes (6) (Figure 1). When you think of highly fundamental or basic research, names like Bohr, Einstein, Maxwell, Mendel, Planck, etc. comes to mind. On the other hand, Edison tried over ten thousand different materials to come up with one that worked and in a few years all the light bulbs were made using that filament material. This approach displays his lack of fundamental understanding, and even today this type of approach is called Edisonian approach. It is scientists like Louis Pasteur who exhibit exemplary work, which has high relevance in application while being 132 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


based on strong fundamental concepts. Similarly, the advent of computers and development to its modern form, or advanced telecommunication based on fiber optics are all examples of research having high quotients of both fundamental concepts and applications. Unfortunately, today most of our research is far from Pasteur-inspired research. We lack fundamental understanding and applicability because researchers aim to make money with minimal understanding instead of focusing on new breakthroughs. This is another reason why we need collaboration between the fundamental and application people.

Figure 1. “Pasteur’s Quadrant”, describing researcher’s fundamental understanding of research and it’s relevance for immediate applications, at both high and low levels. (Source of insets: Wikimedia Commons, http:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Free_media_resources/Photography.)

The Venture Capital Model Venture capitalists work to bring a start-up company to the next stage by providing the required funding with the hope that it will flourish or be purchased by a larger company. Venture capitalists expect huge returns from their investment in a short time period. They invest in various startups and expect only a few to succeed, which would also make up for the losses incurred from the other investments. They would probably invest $5 million in ten startups expecting one or two to succeed, giving them returns of approximately $50 million each. This model has worked very well in the IT industry where capital expenditure is low and rate of deployment is very fast. Once an iPad is introduced, within three years it is deployed all over the world. In the year 2013, approximately 71 million iPads were sold globally. 133 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


Our industry, on the other hand, is capital intensive, the speed of development and deployment is much slower, and the returns are also lower. In the chemical technology development and commercialization, inventing a new technology (or chemical entity or catalyst or therapeutic protein) is only the first step towards its commercialization. The inventors (basic scientists) severely underestimate the time, cost and efforts required to commercialize their discovery. Once something is discovered, it takes two or three more phases of scale up before commercialization. You have to go from gram-scale to kilo-scale, pilot plant, demo plant and then large-scale production. This entire process takes approximately 7-10 years. As an example, the commercial production of penicillin took 35 years. The cash flow for a typical project in our industry is shown in Figure 2. In curve I, ‘a’ is the point where the basic discovery is made. A typical pilot equipment and operating costs would run into several million dollars. After the kilo and pilot lab are a success we start building a commercial plant and more investment is required. Then after production begins, the curve slowly starts turning upwards and it takes about 7-10 years to achieve a net zero cumulative cash flow and then we start making profit. It is so possible that after scaling up, the technology might not prove to be commercially successful. Therefore many venture capitalists are not willing to fund such projects. On the other hand, in IT industry (curve II), this payback period is of 2-3 years. Perhaps, a new funding approach should be developed where the start-ups could directly work with the established companies that financially and technically support them. While the VCs provide useful service for high risk projects, they typically seek near term financial profits and have limited interest in long term development of science and technology.

Figure 2. The cash flow in chemical/oil industry projects to develop new technology and the cash flow in information technology industry projects to develop new technology. 134 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


Several companies have venture capital as an investment arm. Dow Venture Capital, for example, has been investing in promising startups in North America, Europe and Asia for almost 20 years now. They invest in startups that provide innovation in areas of strategic interest to Dow businesses, or are pursuing new and disruptive technologies (7). The arrays of startups include several that address some of the most challenging problems faced by the world including clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Companies are capable of funding technologically driven projects dually beneficial to the investor and the startup company, eliminating the requirement of a mediating venture capitalist. Unlike venture capitalists, the large companies like ours are strategic buyers, we want to promote science and technology because we are looking for a long term business.

Challenges Let’s address some of the challenges that are encountered in international collaborations. One of the major issues regards IP rights where there exist variations in the laws and differences in interpretations in each country. Each sovereign country has its own patent laws and its own interpretation of the uniform WTO patent regulations. Some of these laws are so stringent and archaic that it makes it difficult to work in international collaboration. The international agreements are generally governed by the laws of an acceptable neutral country. For example, the U.S. and Indian collaboration agreement would be governed by U.K. laws. However, some U.S. state universities do not agree to any jurisdiction other than their home state per state law. Technology transfer offices of institutions also sometimes bear hindrance to international collaborations. Companies would like to get exclusive rights for IP from sponsored research, while the institutions want to own the IP and only give license to practice. In our experience, technology transfer offices of institutions or start-ups overestimate the value of their invention/IP and underestimate the risk and cost to commercialization. They demand high licensing fees or purchase prices which makes the project infeasible to commercialize since the gross margins in the chemical business is only 20-30% as compared to 70-80% in pharmaceutical, biotech, or IT industry. It should be noted that greater than 95% of the patents are never commercialized. There should be a need for realistic expectations and robust long-term partnership between basic scientists and experienced technology developers in our industry. The laws governing IP rights and technology transfer are subsumed in the Bayh-Dole Act which was adopted on December 12, 1980. This act was established in order to obtain a better output for the nation from $75 billion a year that was being invested in research by the government. Prior to the enactment of Bayh-Dole, the U.S. government had accumulated 28,000 patents but fewer than 5% of those patents were commercially licensed. However, the laws were so coded and amended that it has curtailed the scope of international collaborations. According to this act, if the university elects to retain title, the university 135 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


must provide the government, through a confirmatory license, a non-exclusive, non-transferable, irrevocable, paid-up right to practice or have practiced the invention on behalf of the U.S. throughout the world. Therefore, though the researching institute retains its title it has gotten no ownership of the invention. Universities cannot assign their ownership of inventions to third parties, except to patent management organizations. Also, any company that holds an exclusive patent license of product sale in the United States must substantially manufacture the product in the U.S. Since the cost of production in the U.S. is generally high, it is not economically feasible for companies to manufacture there and the Government has rights to implement the same technology elsewhere in the world (8). A direct implication of this act was observed in the famous case of Stanford versus Roche (9). Another problem is the lack of commercialization knowledge. Many small companies and research organizations are able to find the breakthroughs but they do not know which direction to follow to commercialize their products. Thus these type of research gets stuck in the laboratory unless they find the right path. For example, Fritz Haber from BASF found the way to synthesize ammonia from air and water but Haber did not had knowledge to turn it into the process. The company purchased the rights to Haber’s patent, and retained him as a consultant. Then under the direction of Carl Bosch, the company built the plants, sold the product to German government and financed the efforts. Likewise many startup companies are selling their ideas to large corporations instead of remaining independent and taking risk of getting bigger profits by self-manufacturing. Another problem is getting the U.S. visa for chemical professionals. While we utilize latest communication tools such as video conferences to minimize travel, sometimes it is essential to have face to face meetings. Also, it is necessary to attend important conferences in person. After filing on-line U.S. visa application, the applicant has to be personally go to the consulate/embassy twice: first for fingerprinting and submission of documents and secondly for an interview. Most chemical professionals are told to submit a synopsis of all their activities, list of patents and research papers. This information is typically sent to Washington for further evaluation and the whole procedure takes a few weeks. Because of the delay in obtaining visa, many professionals are unable to attend business and professional meetings. I understand that ACS has consistently brought up this issue with the U.S. government, but more needs to be done.

Success Stories Indian government and institutions have participated in a number of successful collaborations. Two such partnerships are highlighted below. CEFIPRA-Indo-French Collaboration Indo-French Centre for Science and Development (CEFIPRA) is a joint center for promoting collaboration between Indian and French scientists that has been functional since September 9, 1987. CEFIPRA supports research through 136 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.

‘Collaborative Research Programs’ and ‘Industrial Research Programs’, each having its own set of criteria. SINCE 1988 • •

1190 research proposals evaluated 406 research projects approved;


– –

315 completed; 61 under implementation

The only eligibility criterion for availing benefits under this program is to have a permanent position in an Indian or French University /R&D Institution. The Centre supports the project by providing manpower (in terms of PhDs or experts in the field), purchase of consumables, travel (international and domestic), and small equipment to Indian partners. An industry from France or India and a research institution from the other country must be involved. Partnerships with more than one industry or one research institution are also possible. CEFIPRA is an excellent example of how nations can promote growth and innovation by overcoming complicated laws and regulations and setting up joint centers (10). IITB-Monash Research Academy The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IITB) is one of the top ranked technological institutes in India while the Monash University, which has various campuses in Australia, is a non-profit organization as endorsed by the Australian tax office. Supported by state-of-the-art technical facilities and high performance computing sources, the IITB-Monash academy aims to house around 250-300 PhD students at any time. They will be supervised by experts from both the universities and industry partners of the academy. Selected students (typically 40 per year) will get a dual badged PhD degree, from IITB and the Monash University, Australia. Each PhD project is funded mostly by industry and some by government. Each student is guided by three advisors: one from IITB, one from Monash, and one from an industrial sponsor. The academy aspires to deliver innovative solutions through collaborative, multi-disciplinary projects that are of importance to the Indian and Australian industries (11).

International Collaborations and Incubation Centers All international collaborations need to meet three basic criteria to be successful: Complementarity, Compatibility, and Continuity (12). The participating members of the collaboration should be of equivalent statures intellectually and financially to avoid overshadowing of one of the members and to have a healthy continual collaboration. Also, their knowledge in their respective fields should be complementary towards the achievement of the common aim. Continuity in the sense that the collaborations should not last for just 1-2 years but at least for 5 years with mutual benefits. Incubation could be a good method 137 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


for international collaborations. Incubating companies should not only provide financial support, but also intellectual support to commercialize some of the big inventions. A change in the Indian Law states that established companies should mandatorily spend a part of their net profits for innovation. For example, in India, any company having a net worth of rupees 500 crore or more or a turnover of rupees 1,000 crore or more or a net profit of rupees 5 crore or more is required to spend 2% of their net profits per fiscal on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, in effect from April 1, 2014. This money could be spent in funding research activities through national as well as international collaboration. To conclude, we believe that scientific progress is essential for better living, better health and better nation. We are open and committed to seek alliances and collaborate with centers of excellence anywhere in the world despite all the difficulties and challenges. We must do this to efficiently meet the aspirational needs of our global village. Global technology also needs to be developed faster to meet the demands of the growing population. Technology has leapfrogged its way into the 21st century. However, now it needs to pole vault into the future to live up to the expectations of the people. These are all global issues that need to be attended by all nations in a unified manner, and all available intellectual resources from all nations have to be pooled together to address these challenges.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Dr. Marinda Wu and Dr. H.N. Cheng for the invitation to give a plenary lecture at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco and for their encouragement and patience in submission of this manuscript. The author would like to acknowledge Prof. M.M. Sharma, F.R.S., for stimulating discussions on this subject matter. The author would also like to thank his students, Ms. Rutvi Ajbani and Ms. Nidhi Pant of ICT, and his RIL colleague, Dr. Payal Chandan, for help in preparation of the presentation and manuscript.

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Dow Venture Capital; http://www.dow.com/venture/ (accessed August 6). Congressional Research Service. The Bayh−Dole Act: Selected Issues in Patent Policy and the Commercialization of Technology; https://www.autm.net/Bayh_Dole_Act_Report.htm (accessed June 20, 2014). 9. Wikipedia. Bayh−Dole Act; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2% 80%93Dole_Act (accessed June 20, 2014). 10. Cefipra; http://www.cefipra.org/section.aspx?catid=818&langid=1 (accessed July 10, 2014). 11. ITB-Monash Research Academy; http://www.iitbmonash.org/ (accessed July 10, 2014). 12. Sharma, M. M. FRS Former Director of Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. Personal Communication, Summer 2014.

139 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.

International Collaborations in R&D: An Indian Perspective

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