Working with a university on product R&D?

[cvanc]

Anyone got experience doing this?

I'm working on a new product design that has aspects outside of my expertise. I'd like to enlist a university to fill in the gaps. Has anyone here "been there, done that" and would you be willing to share your experience? I'd be grateful for any insight you can offer.

(I should say the product is not related to rocketry in any way)

 

[Sooner Boomer]

I doubt you really want to get the University involved, unless you have a project with $BIG $BUCKS. A couple of million would only be a starting point. What I would do would be to contact one of the professors in the area you're interested in. The University probably has a web page describing the areas of interest for each faculty member in a School, the projects he/she is working on, plus contact info. Call them up and invite them to a nice lunch to discuss your idea (everybody likes free food).

 

[Nytrunner]

And if you get a Sr Design team working on it, who knows what you'll end up with!

 

[dr wogz]

I had been on a project that had university involvement, 2 actually. As Sooner said, big bucks. We looked at a local Uni (McGill), then had a professor from a foreign (Hungarian) uni offer his intent & idea..

Our experience was that they can solve the problem / offer a new solution. But they came with a big price for the research & first prototype. While the prototype worked as expected, the overall cost to produce their offering was about 10 times what we were currently selling it for. SO, kinda useless & pointless. Remember, a university isn't aware of your industry, nor what you're' selling, or for how much. They will design something to fit the criteria, regardless of the cost.. initially..

In our case, neither offering was useful or practical. We just stuck with what we had, revised the PCB & software..

Also, you'll likely be paying for / your design will become some undergrad / post grad's thesis on said subject.. (we did, for the guy at McGill..)