The Centre for Technology Management (CTM) at the University of Cambridge invites applications for a PhD position within our innovation and intellectual property (IP) management research group (IIPM).
The IIPM group is characterized by a young dynamic staff with strong research collaborations between industry and academia. We take a broad definition of IP and employ a relational perspective focusing on IP as enabler for collaborative and distributed innovation processes (i.e. Open Innovation). We have a primary interest in IP challenges for accelerating the development of emerging (manufacturing) technologies for supporting UK manufacturing. The group applies engineering principles to solve real life managerial problems, for example, through the development of new tools, techniques, approaches and methods.
We are seeking candidates with IP expertise as well as domain specific knowledge. Research interests may include, but are not restricted to:
- How to design IP based business models for multi-partner collaborations, such as joint R&D projects and industry-university partnerships?
- How to accelerate the development towards Industrie 4.0 (internet of things) through strategic IP management?
- How can open IP strategies help social enterprises, for instance cleantech ventures tackling the plastic challenge or medical not-for profit companies focusing on rare diseases (e.g. non-commercial patent pools)?
- How to integrate open source with proprietary software in innovation processes, e.g. IP modularity?
- How to increase UK productivity through better IP education, e.g. through design of new IP tools for learning?
Candidates must hold a Master degree or equivalent. Industrial IP related experience is beneficial. The preferred starting date is October 2016, with an option to start in January 2017. Our PhD students commonly have own funding, but we can support efforts to acquire funding. If you have a keen interest in any of the above topics (or like to suggest another topic) please contact Dr Frank Tietze (frank.tietze@eng.cam.ac.uk).