Nokia — Hard times are opportunities

Leo Kärkkäinen, distinguished scientist, Nokia Research Center, Helsinki, Finland

Different parts of the research and development (R&D) chain respond to hard times in different ways. Agility, out of the box thinking and solid R&D performance are even more highly valued now than in times of plenty. However, in a deep recession, no one is insulated from fiscal pressures. The first parts of the R&D chain, open innovation and long-term research, are asked to 'fail fast' — that is, to figure out the future relevance of new technologies as soon as possible. For the development part, it is necessary to have solid product delivery and agility in responding to fast-moving consumer trends to steer the product towards markets that are not as sensitive to recession pressures.

Yet hard times are often the best times to invest and create new products, because they are precisely when the competition is less likely to be able to respond to the challenge. So cutting R&D costs under fiscal pressure is sometimes, paradoxically, the most expensive thing to do.

In the next 20 years, we will see the rise of carbon-based electronics, using ultrathin graphene sheets, which will change how electronic components are produced and integrated onto chips or devices. Graphene is thin and transparent, often created by peeling away an atomic layer of carbon from a growing substrate like copper. This will make it naturally flexible, enabling a new breed of electronic devices, embedded in everyday objects, and wearable like cloth. These flexible electronic devices will be able to talk to each other to provide a better user experience, from faster response times to context-sensitive behaviour.

At the same time, manufacturing methods will change dramatically, driving down the cost of the products — we will see more roll-to-roll printed electronics, as already used for flexible displays. This could increase technology adoption rates in poorer nations, affecting global social development. By 2020 we can also expect widespread applications of artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and robots that interact with humans more easily.

Nokia is driven by a passion for doing things, and a positive company culture is very important to us. We have companywide activities to encourage diversity in innovation. In our yearly Nokia Excellence Award, hundreds of well performing and successful innovative projects are reviewed and the best dozen are personally evaluated by the Nokia chief executive and board members in a face-to-face event with the inventors.

One of the biggest challenges in innovation is prioritization: new ideas may not have a convincing enough business case or value until changes in the business environment make them obvious to everyone (including competitors). This can, of course, happen when it is too late to reap any rewards. One way we tackle this is to combine prioritization with crowd-sourcing of new ideas from our employees. In our Nokia Sphere project, employees can vote to work and improve on ideas that seem promising, driving implementation from the bottom up.

Toyota — Improve efficiency of development

Toyota Motor Corporation, Aichi, Japan

We have been working in a very difficult business environment since the recession began in 2009 (see 'Corporate changes'). But we are still investing more than 700 billion yen (US$8.7 billion) a year in R&D. We want to keep our competitive edge in technology and products, so we are maintaining high levels of investment to develop advanced technology related to safety, the environment and energy. We've used the recession as an opportunity to work with our suppliers to improve our development efficiency and we hope to take advantage of this in the future.

Credit: SOURCE: BOOZ & CO.

At the moment, there is no clear alternative to petrol as an energy source for cars. So we are developing a wide range of products based on hybrid-vehicle technology, combining an electric motor and a petrol engine. Our approach is to develop the best cars for the consumer in each different market.

We currently have a strong focus on batteries for future electric vehicles. Although lithium-ion batteries are becoming more widely used, it is hard to see electric vehicles completely replacing conventional passenger cars, even if we push the performance of lithium-ion batteries to the limits. We have to solve problems of energy storage density and cost. We are researching and developing all-solid and metal–air batteries, which are two promising alternatives to lithium-ion.

Another possible game-changing technology is solar power. More and more households are using solar cells. At the moment, some of our hybrid Prius cars have solar-powered ventilation systems that operate while the car is parked, but it may also be possible to use solar power to drive the vehicle if we can achieve a breakthrough in the efficiency of generating electricity from solar energy.

In the long term, we believe that the use of vehicle telematics will revolutionize the car industry. We are seeing rapid development and innovation in automated driving and accident prevention. As vehicle-control technology advances, more cars may be able to avoid collisions. Then it may become possible to change vehicle structures and make cars much lighter. That will in itself reduce energy usage.

The Japanese idea of monozukuri, which could be translated as making things, is at the heart of Toyota's approach. We think that new ideas are created by digging into the root causes of problems and by finding out facts through genchi genbutsu, which means actually going to a site and discovering the real situation for yourself. It is important that we nurture our employees to take this practice to heart. For the past 50 years, this approach has been the driving force behind the innovation and originality in our development processes.

Roche — Collaborate with the public sector

Jean Jacques Garaud, global head of pharma research and early development, Roche Holding, Basel, Switzerland

The recession is diminishing the funding available for research at publicly funded scientific institutions. This compels them to be more open to, and more collaborative in, public–private partnerships. Since the integration into Roche of Genentech, a Californian biotechnology company, in 2009, Roche has operated two autonomous Research and Early Development units, pRED and gRED, with distinctive approaches. In the first 18 months of pRED, we've developed and driven external collaborations, ranging from relationships with individual academics to entire networks with leading academic and health institutions.

At the same time the economic crisis increases the pressure on drug prices and forces us to home in on drug candidates that will add value from a medical and public-health standpoint. We are focusing efforts on personalized health care, because patients with the same condition can react to the same treatment in different ways — and sometimes even receive treatment that is inappropriate for them. To better fit the treatment to the patient, we must concentrate on better understanding the molecular basis of diseases and their heterogeneity.

I'm optimistic that these recessionary challenges can be turned into opportunities to make health care better, safer and more effective.

Medical chemists at pharmaceutical giant Roche want to build better drug–disease models. Credit: ROCHE

Our ultimate goal is to understand the biology of diseases and translate this knowledge into the clinic. New technologies that will help include cell-penetrating peptides that may allow the delivery of drugs into cells as well as therapeutic interactions on the cell surface. For peptides in general, we will need to develop synthesis methods to overcome difficulties, such as structural instability, that can weaken peptide interaction with targets and reduce activity and specificity.

Stem cells will also be increasingly important as translational-research tools. With differentiated cells derived from stem cells, we are able to study the effects of drug compounds on clinically relevant targets and observe cellular functions at an early stage.

Finally, computer modelling and simulation could also be game changers, if we can build more reliable drug–disease models to better design experiments and predict their outcome.

To encourage such innovation, Roche fosters an environment that allows our scientists to grow and experiment with new ideas and approaches. One way to do that is to talk about science itself, not just about managing science. We have launched a 'barn initiative' to provide informal environments for kindling creativity in settings from campuses and castles to converted barns. At these 'barns', away from their day-to-day projects, scientists can engage in positive and challenging scientific discussions on a specific theme.

It is also important to provide the recognition and the rewards that scientists deserve. Our publication strategy explicitly encourages publishing in scientific journals and we advocate the exchange of ideas at scientific conferences.