______________________________________________ Loïc Bordais Head of industrial liaison office Partnership management : Using decision support tools

______________________________________________ Decision making steps Definition of Dr. Brown of Swansea Hospital : seven steps 1.Outline your goal and outcome. 2.Gather data. 3.Develop alternatives 4.List pros and cons of each alternative. 5.Make the decision. 6.Immediately take action to implement it. 7.Learn from and reflect on the decision.

______________________________________________ Decision making steps : step 2 « Gather data » Decision support Validated information Analysis Selected Information Focused Collect with filters = Keywords internal/external public/private sources = Raw Information The pyramid of information in watch process

______________________________________________ Decision support tools in partnership management : an example An example of strategic approach for animal health department of INRA (National Institute for Agricultural Research) Question : How to diversify partnership to European or Wolrdwide level in our labs ? (Step one « Outline your goal » ) Two core factors : 1)Research activity is now a partnership activity 2)Strategic partnership is a key for scientific excellence So how to choose a well fitted partnership ? You need to know actors, their activity and importance, existing or possible partnership : you need to gather INFORMATION (step 2), you need to make decision (step 5) « choose partners » and implement it (step 6) « enter into collaboration ». For pragmatic reasons : no time to spend for researchers, difficulty to get the « grey information » and others, our support team chose a self evaluation method from the Sociologic Centre of Innovation in Paris : the ASPUR method.

______________________________________________ Partnership management : ASPUR Strategic Partnership Analysis for Research Unit Major actor Medium actor Weak actor

______________________________________________ Partnership management : limitations of self evaluation approach Perfect to collect grey information in condensed form in a limited time But risk of : missing of actors, missing of quantitative information about actors Unrelevant qualification of actors (feeling vs facts) that may conduct to a wrong partnership You need an objective assesment of information. Decision making is a combination between feeling and facts. So we decided in 2007 to reinforcement the ASPUR method by watch tools : collecting tools for internet sites, publications sites, tools for patent database (matheo patent), financial databases.

______________________________________________ Partnership management : implementation of watch tools Definition of required information : size of actors, R&D indicators For academics : standard figures, publications, patents For economic actors : financial figures, patents Objective : re-define importance of actors in ASPUR method Watch tools : Keywatch for web crawling, SCRL databases for financial figures, Web of science for publications, matheo patents for patents. Difficulties : Watch tools were not so easy to manage in 2007 ; different tools without integration Importance of keywords : well defined field of research Means : more human and financial ressources

______________________________________________ Partnership management : conclusion Decision support tools are strategic in a more an more complex world. Use it ! At first : step one Outline your goal and outcome : Take time to know what are you searching for ? What do you want to know ? Then : step 2 Gather data what do you need as information ? What tools would be useful ? Existing or new ones (like in HEP experiments) : new tools open new possibilities So build your own information system and analysing structure : it is a well known watch process Do not try to reach perfection right the first time ; it is a back and forth system Thanks for your attention.