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This paper proposes a policy framework for using offset and industrial collaboration (IC) to develop human capability in the defence and security sector, focusing on Malaysia. It underscores the importance of integrating human capital development with traditional defence spending. Key challenges and success factors in executing offset policies for human capability enhancement are identified. The introduced 'MINERVA' framework includes elements such as a clear vision for human capital development, capability gap analysis, knowledge transfer incentives, credible partners, governance frameworks, stakeholder engagement, efficient project implementation, and assessing absorptive capacity. Through qualitative analysis of Malaysian case studies, the paper highlights optimising defence budgets for skills, education and training. The paper argues that the alignment of international defence procurement with offset policies focused on human capital development can enhance indigenous defence capabilities, military potential, job creation, regional clusters and exports. This alignment bolsters national security and resilience against challenges such as digitalisation and pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous technological development, digitalization, Industry 4.0, robotization, virtualization, and related investments in new types of physical assets are imposing increasing financial and intellectual demands on micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). While fast technological development and rapid societal change make maintenance of a successful competitive edge ever more challenging, they also offer considerable potential for differentiation. In the area of networking and outside resources, MSMEs can utilize external resources and cooperate and collaborate with higher educational institutions (HEI) to boost their innovations pipeline and develop new technologies and processes to generate commercial products/services and improve their service offering. This research explores existing highly effective university–industry collaboration (UIC) models and seeks explanations for their success by examining the literature from the point of view of establishing successful relationships, emphasizing the importance of critical drivers for success. Our work synthesizes current knowledge of best practices based on a comparative analysis of practical collaboration. In the work, we identify eight popular and successful collaboration models: research and development partnerships, internships and co-op programs, knowledge transfer programs, entrepreneurship, and incubation programs, sponsored projects and grants, joint ventures and licensing agreements, executive education, professional and student career development. Based on analysis of globally reviewed successful models, a concept for robust, productive, and extended collaboration between companies and universities is produced suitable for the Finnish context. Several practical experiences are given for robust collaboration in the current post-COVID transition and energy crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The improvement of digital infrastructure is a key support for enhancing the industrial chain resilience and ensuring its normal operation under various unconventional disturbance risks. This paper uses panel regression model, quantile regression model, panel threshold model, and Spatial Durbin Model to explore the internal mechanism and spatial impact effect of digital infrastructure construction on China's manufacturing industry chain resilience. Research found that digital infrastructure does have a positive impact on industrial chain resilience. The estimation results of heterogeneity indicate that compared with underdevelopment or regions with tight finance, the positive promotion effect of digital infrastructure on the manufacturing industry chain in regions with developed economies and abundant regional finance is smaller. In regions with relatively abundant human capital, it is easier to promote the positive effect of digital infrastructure on industrial chain resilience. This paper not only enriches the quantitative research on industrial chain resilience, but also expands the research boundaries of industrial chain resilience. And it provides policy inspiration for promoting digital infrastructure and industrial chain resilience development in a coordinated manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a young but vigorous international city cluster with a complete industrial system and is taking the lead in China's economic development. This paper analyzes the economic and industrial development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and measures the industrial agglomeration index and homogeneity index among different cities in the area. After our analysis, we found that the cities in the area showed apparent differences in their economic development levels. Therefore, this paper suggests improving the competitiveness of the Greater Bay Area through systematic division and collaboration of industries, further achieving rational industrial structure and high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine Learning (ML) is increasingly applied in industrial manufacturing, but often performance is limited due to insufficient training data. While ML models can benefit from collaboration, due to privacy concerns, individual manufacturers often cannot share data directly. Federated Learning (FL) enables collaborative training of ML models without revealing raw data. However, current FL approaches fail to take the characteristics and requirements of industrial clients into account. In this work, we propose an FL system consisting of a process description and a software architecture to provide FL as a Service (FLaaS) to industrial clients deployed to edge devices. Our approach deals with skewed data by organizing clients into cohorts with similar data distributions. We evaluated the system on two industrial datasets. We show how the FLaaS approach provides FL to client processes by considering their requests submitted to the Industrial Federated Learning (IFL) Services API. Experiments on both industrial datasets and different FL algorithms show that the proposed cohort building can increase the ML model performance notably. • Federated learning enables training a model without sharing clients' data. • Clients with skewed data can improve their model more by training with similar ones. • Federate learning services build cohorts of clients without retrieving their data. • Clients with skewed data improve their model using cohort-based federated services. • Edge device clients independently collaborate using federated learning services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that the industrial sector consumes almost one-third of the energy demand globally, it is an urgent call to reduce the carbon footprints in this sector. Among different approaches to meet this goal, such as the employment of carbon capture technologies and increasing energy efficiency within industries, transitioning to renewable electricity (RE) would be another outlook to reduce the carbon footprints and increase the energy security of the industries. Collective power generation within communities has shown to be feasible and promising in the industrial sector, where groups of industries collaborate to generate energy and meet their energy demand. In this research, we investigated how the initiation and continuation of industrial community energy systems (InCES) among companies can take place and which financial incentives the government can introduce to support these initiatives. We built an agent-based model that incorporates cost-benefit analysis and cultural factors in the decision making process of industries, to assess the feasibility of initiating/joining an InCES by industries. This study shows that the FIT mechanism had the worst performance in incentivizing the establishment of an InCES among industries. In contrast, the TAX incentive showed the best performance in mobilizing the investments towards InCES. Similarly, the TAX incentive showed relatively superior performance in electricity generation, the number of established InCESs, and the number of companies joining each InCES. Despite the better performance of the TAX incentive, it was also the most expensive option for the governments as a significant share of the establishment costs of an InCES was put on the shoulders of the governments.

Like many other sectors, climate change strategies have put various restrictions on industry, the most prominent one being caps on CO2 and other energy-related emissions. At the same time, and especially in many developing economies, the industry struggles with an increasing gap between the fast development of the sector and lagging energy supply capacity. Collective generation of renewable energy is seen as a promising means of transition, next to other forms of renewable energy generation (centralised, individual). The aim of this research is to investigate factors influencing willingness to participate in Industrial Community Energy Systems (InCES). Using existing literature on Industrial Symbiosis and Community Energy Systems, we formulate plausible hypotheses on the most relevant factors for the willingness of industries to join such initiatives. As one of the largest and most diversified industrial clusters in Iran, Arak industrial park is selected as the case study. Data were collected from the CEOs of 96 companies through survey research. Our results highlight the crucial role of awareness about the benefits of renewable power generation in an InCES. Social identity among industries and trust between them are also determining factors for their willingness to join InCES. Finally, proper institutional design for overcoming the partnership complexities (e.g., conflict resolution) was highlighted as a crucial factor for industries. It can be concluded from the results of this study that policymakers should avoid one-size-fits-all incentive design approaches and reach out to larger companies with targeted incentives, introduce specially designed bank loans for different target groups, and make use of consulting companies as intermediaries to increase the awareness of the industries regarding the benefits of investing in an InCES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase the percentage of our graduates trained in a multidisciplinary setting, we have pooled resources from several departmental capstone design courses to create a common multidisciplinary course with a novel structure. The new course consists of multiple sections, one for each of the project types previously offered in the departmental courses. The new teaching platform has increased the choice of capstone design projects available to students and provides the flexibility to form multidisciplinary as well as mono‐disciplinary teams of students depending on the needs of the projects. In the process design section of the course, teams of four or five students work on design projects sponsored by industry and are co‐mentored by a practicing engineer and a faculty member. Seven evenly spaced milestones are used to pace students, guide mentors, and facilitate the progressive assembly of a high‐quality final report. Peer evaluations are also used to improve team dynamics and are combined with mentor ratings to derive individual grades from the assessment of team deliverables. The normalized peer ratings of effective team members follow a normal distribution with a mean of unity and a SD of 0.04, whereas the ratings of ineffective members fall below the distribution. Our collaborative approach for teaching process design provides a motivating educational experience to students and each of the course learning outcomes was achieved by over 95% of the students during the first two offerings of the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years, it has been the industry's intention to support its product life-cycle with different data formats and versions of the same model in order to provide the necessary information for all the downstream processes. The creation of Model-Based Definition technology eliminates the necessity of diverse file formats by substituting them with a single file that is capable of carrying all the important information for processes, such as design, manufacturing, etc. Furthermore, to achieve a proper distribution of the data to the departments involved in the development of the product, many approaches exploited the PLM and the model-based workflows emerged from these technologies' cooperation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a proposed methodology, which utilizes the capabilities of MBD technology along with the use of PDM software to refine the data sharing process and streamline the collaboration among different departments of a company, without being limited to the design and manufacturing of the product. Aiming to eliminate counterproductive data formats and collaboration methods used in the industry, the proposed method uses an MBD 3D PDF-based template as the main source of the necessary information for all the product life-cycle processes. This lightweight template file, in cooperation with the PDM software, provides the ability to all the departments to obtain the required information, and contribute to the generation of them through a proposed workflow. Moreover, the results concerning the duration of different production activities obtained by the implementation of the method to an industrial equipment company, are used to demonstrate its efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In support of the sustainable development of our societies, future engineers should have elementary knowledge in sustainability assessment and use of life cycle assessment. Publications on pedagogical experience with teaching life cycle assessment (LCA) in high-level education are however scarce. Here, we describe and discuss 20 years of experience in teaching LCA at MSc level in an engineering university with the ambition to share our insights and inspire teaching of LCA as part of a university curriculum.Methods: We detail the design of an LCA course taught at the Technical University of Denmark since 1997. The course structure relies on (i) a structured combination of theoretical teaching, practical assignments and hands-on practice on LCA case studies, and (ii) the conduct of real-life LCA case studies in collaboration with companies or other organisations. Through the semester-long duration of the course, students from different engineering backgrounds perform full-fledged LCA studies in groups, passing through two iterations—a screening LCA supporting a more targeted LCA.Results and discussion: The course design, which relies on a learning-by-doing principle, is transparently described to inspire LCA teachers among the readers. Historical evolution and statistics about the course, including its 192 case studies run in collaboration with 105 companies and institutions, are analysed and serve as basis to discuss the benefits and challenges of its different components, such as the theory acquisition, the assignment work, the LCA software learning, the conduct of case studies, the merits of industrial collaborations and grading approaches.Conclusions: We demonstrate the win-win situation created by the setting of the course, in which the students are actively engaged and learn efficiently how to perform an LCA while the collaborating companies often get useful insights into their analysed case studies. The course can also be an eye opener for companies unfamiliar with LCA, who get introduced to life cycle thinking and the potential benefits of LCA. We have no hesitation in recommending industries and LCA teachers to engage into such collaborations even in the fundamental teaching of LCA techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of decreasing industrial CO2 footprints has become evident, as also highlighted in COP26. As such, the transition to renewable energy in the industrial sector is essential to meet the targets. To this aim, establishing industrial community energy systems (InCES) where industries collectively invest in a shared energy system is an economically and environmentally attractive option. Yet, the emergence and continuity of such collective initiatives among industrial companies has neither received considerable attention in the scientific literature nor in practice. This research, as the first of its kind, aims to investigate institutional design options that allow for such collaboration to take place for the establishment and continuity of an InCES. Given the bottom-up and collaborative nature of such initiatives, we take an agent-based modeling and simulation approach, for the first time in this area, that incorporates the institutional and societal attributes that influence the formation and continuation of an InCES. We take data from an industrial cluster in Arak, one of the most prominent industrial cities in Iran. The results of this study confirm the economic feasibility of an InCES as compared to individual renewable energy investment in the cluster. The results also highlight the importance of flexible membership in increasing the number of investors (i.e., industrial companies) in such initiatives. Other important recommendations are: considering the installation of at least 15% extra capacity for the powerplant, restricting electricity consumption and enforcing on-time payment of monthly premium fees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fostering ‘experiential learning’ in real-life situations is a critical task for engineering educators when creating constructively aligned learning activities. The paper proposes an approach to measure the students’ perception of learning in Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate activities conducted outside the classroom. The approach is based on the opportunity of gathering and analyzing lessons learned from the student reflection reports at the end of a team-based innovation project performed in collaboration with company partners. The approach is intended to provide a basis for the future development of innovation projects with engineering students, supporting the definition of learning outcomes that are relevant for the CDIO Syllabus 2.0, and of constructively aligned learning experiences. The paper exemplifies the approach with regards to a master course named Value Innovation and presents the findings obtained at the third and second level of the CDIO Syllabus 2.0. The results of the course implementation show how short team-based innovation projects largely contributed in developing social and communication-related skills in engineering students, going beyond the mere application of their technical skills.

The paper starts from a documented premise of there being a critical shortage of skilled building surveyors. It also uses a researched premise that all stakeholders to building surveying education favour the incorporation of vocational skills training alongside academic instruction. This creates graduates already possessing core vocational skills and a knowledge of practice. The question posed is whether practitioners themselves can assist in this skills transfer, or whether it should be left wholly to specialist educators to devise ways of delivering such knowledge. A fortunate opportunity which allows the author to evaluate two identical activities of dilapidations surveying undertaken by the same learners, in the same academic period, under identical conditions, with one facilitated and lead by a specialist surveying tutor as an industrial simulation and the other facilitated and lead by a current practitioner, on a current dilapidations instruction. Findings tend towards a belief that practice reaching out to assist educators is a worthwhile way that any future skills shortages can be addressed through graduates entering practice with greater experience of vocational practices and skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher educational institutions (HEIs) are expected to contribute to local economies and the working life through collaboration and regional development. Increasing demands and diminishing resources call for innovative solutions. We discuss the benefits of integrating education and regional development in HEIs through spatiality. We build on community engagement, knowledge transfer, spatiality and the Triple Helix; identifying a HEI's knowledge and people flows. We apply the frame to a case study of a university of applied sciences in Finland. Results suggest that there are a number of ways in which a HEI can collaborate with local industries and strengthen its regional impact without significant structural trade-offs and while supporting pedagogy. The results have implications for higher educational institutions, particularly, concerning the agile, transportable educational space concept. The study raises an important issue related to the assumptions of what makes a university: physical presence versus knowledge flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a practical implementation of circular principles in a case study on domestic boilers. The manufacturer and a recycling company collaborated by performing pilot studies on closing the aluminium cycle. The case study proved economically viable and not limited by technical or practical aspects. Additional benefits for both companies have been implemented and additional insights on the circular economy were observed. The results indicate that this form of sustainable manufacturing quickly transcends the boundaries of individual companies, which confirms the necessity of close collaboration with stakeholders in the value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a special focus on the field of nanotechnology, this paper investigates motivations of academic scientists to interact with industry. The study is based on a survey of 181 nanoscientists from various disciplines and universities in Turkey. We identified three main motivations for interacting with industry: 1) to increase resources for academic research; 2) to learn from firms; 3) to commercialise research results. We found that in nanotechnology, commercialisation of research outcomes is an important motivation. In general, the importance of motivations differs according to the forms of engagement. Consulting is motivated by commercialisation while research-based interactions are driven by aims to commercialise or to learn from firms. Finding new financial resources for academic research is a strong impetus for informal interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses firms' efforts to innovate through collaborative R&D carried with research universities in Brazil. In Brazil, the resources of federal and state agencies, along with the universities' infrastructure, act as a link to enhance this endeavour. This study examines university-industry interaction in pursuit of innovation using a bibliographical review and a case study involving two state universities and four companies in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The paper suggests that new policies are required to promote a level of university-industry cooperation in Brazil in which universities can better capture the positive economic externalities arising out of cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates a Problem based learning framework (PBL) which focuses on how to improve the software design and development skills, in collaboration with the industrial firms. The empirical study was conducted with the first year students learning at the School of Information Technology, in Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand. The results of this study indicate that the PBL framework as a learning environment is to provide students with knowledge that matches with the industrial requirement. Through an industrial cooperation the PBL program encourages student development by being self-directed and fostering collaborative learning skills. Evidence of the positive results of this PBL framework has been provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses collaborative innovation activity undertaken by universities in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China. The theoretical background references the systems of innovation approach and the triple helix model of university-industry-government interaction. The paper reviews Hong Kong's tertiary education system and the role of science and technology development in Shenzhen and Mainland China. Focusing on knowledge transfer between university research facilities, research institutes, industry, and government, the paper profiles key collaborative innovation programmes and documents an emerging trend in innovation strategy that utilises innovation collaboration to spawn startup businesses in China. Although we find no definite pattern of university-industry-government collaboration, we identify a range of specific competitive advantages associated with each of Hong Kong's universities that drive their innovation-related collaboration with institutions and firms in other sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few issues are more important to states’ security than their ability to acquire modern weaponry. Today, advanced industrial democracies possess three options for doing this. In principle, they can: autonomously produce their own armaments, import them from foreign suppliers, or collaborate with other states to co-produce common weapons. In this study, we examine the factors driving state decisions to either collaboratively or autonomously procure advanced weaponry. To this end, we analyse French and British decisions about whether or not to collaborate in the domain of combat aircraft. To preview our conclusion, we draw on the Varieties of Capitalism approach to argue that the underlying institutional structures of national political economies explain why otherwise similar states have enacted divergent policies. Within Étatist France, dense exchanges and close relationships within elite networks enable large defence contractors to veto government decisions that contravene their preferences. By way of contrast, Britain's liberal market economy empowers its government to impose its preference for collaborative projects onto aircraft manufacturers, even when the latter attempt to lobby in favour of promising national designs. Thus, what variety of capitalism a state practises determines whether governments or contractors occupy the metaphorical cockpit when it comes to making procurement policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As strategic and systems approaches are becoming more relevant in design education when it concerns collaborative projects with the industry, an explicit systems design methodology is needed to structure collaboration and learning among students, educators, and the Norwegian industry. This article describes three alternative studio projects for teaching strategic and systems design with the involvement of Norwegian companies. Besides this, the approaches and fundamental theories of design thinking and reasoning, which are characteristic of these projects, were reflected against each other. In the undergraduate (year 2) systems thinking design studio, the challenge was to train students to understand how system elements are rationally interconnected with their suprasystems and subsystems based on usability and man-machine interactions. In addition to the challenges pertaining to systems thinking, collabora­tive learning and designing based on a mentorship learning concept were introduced in the Vertical Design Studio, which involved second- and third-year students. Concerning the postgraduate fourth-year strategic design projects with the industry, the challenge was to involve Norwegian companies in product planning and goal finding as well as in innovation and design activities and to assess how supportive and receptive these companies were towards radical innovation/diversification. The analysis of completed projects shows that the Norwegian industry is supportive of strategic design but is rather conservative and risk averse when it concerns accepting and implementing radical innovation initiatives. Referring to user-centred and context-based innovation, this article also supports the implementation of a systems approach to facilitate social and hierarchical learning across the second-year systems design studio, second- and third-year vertical studios, and fourth-year strategic design studio.