Category:Research and Development
From Eurêka
Research and Development
Research and Development (R & D) Widely used term which incorporates two interrelated and essential stages in the promotion of technological inputs (new products and new processes of production). Most industries and many large firms maintain R & D establishments, although much R & D work is undertaken by or on behalf of government. Such technology-producing activity has developed its own location patterns, affected by the need to employ highly qualified scientists, engineers and technicians. Research is the symbiosis of three activities: improvement, managed evolution and innovation.
- Improvement Making the already successful better.
- Managed evolution Use of a new product, process or service to spawn even newer product, process or service.
Basic research (Fundamental research) Research into the fundamental elements of a subject and generally without a specific commercial objectives.
Applied research (Industrial research) Applying the results of basic research into new commercial products.
Technological incrementalism Concept of incrementalism emphasizes rapid and inexpensive learning in research and development using trials that are only marginally different from the status quo. These trials are not strongly influenced by any scientific conjecture and thus are never sensitive to any scientific claims current at the time.
Pre-competitive research Research undertaken jointly by competing firms, usually under an organization funded by the government in order to accelerate the country’s leadership in the field in question and before the private concerns take up the advances for commercial production.
Near-market research Research that turns ideas into practical knowledge for industry but is not in itself directly marketable.
Fraunhofer (Ger) Institutes designed to speed the transfer of technology to industry.
Faraday programme (BrE) British program based on the Fraunhofter concept, but the government refused to participate, announced February 1993.
- Faraday Centre (BrE) Institute of the Faraday program.
- Postgraduate Training Partnerships Training postgraduate students in a part-industrial and part-academic environment.
Development
Development Translation of applied research into factory-scale processes and production. It also can include the improvement of existing products.
Reverse engineering Simply copying. Freely borrowing others methods and product designs just short of illegality which often occupies a gray area of business ethics.
Development cycle Period of time that it takes to improve or produce a new product to replace an earlier model
