Changing the rules of the game for future agriculture, The University Innovation Centre (UIC) model

Abstract

The increasing demands placed on sustainable food, feed and fuel production from world population growth and climate change are driving the need for improved agricultural productivity from the limited fertile land-bank and natural resources. The open innovation concept offers opportunities to swiftly create novel products, services and techniques which can deliver a paradigm shift in farming practice and food supply management. To identify and realise these new agricultural approaches requires the integration of an in-depth understanding of future customer needs (potential market pull) alongside a knowledge of emerging technological possibilities arising from parallel industrial and non-agri research sectors (potential technology push). This paper describes a three year process undertaken by the science led agribusiness, Syngenta Plc, in partnership with the University of Manchester, UK, which has culminated in the University Innovation Centre (UIC) concept. This is exemplified through a case study based upon the first of these UICs, which addresses the introduction of Sensors and Informatics into agriculture (‘agri-electronics’). The paper covers the consolidation in the agri-industry which has laid the foundation for the UICs, the rationale for selecting agri-electronics as a strategic enabling technology, the mechanism applied for landscaping the business opportunities that it may offer across a 15 year horizon, the learning drawn from academic partnering models exploited by unrelated business sectors and the adaptation of these concepts into the current framework agreement between the university, company and other potential third parties.