Collaboration with industry

SICS has a long and strong tradition of close collaboration with commercial companies and other organizations, e.g. government agencies and other public bodies. We work with both large organizations and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The main ways in which we collaborate with other organizations are:

FDF - SICS stakeholder group
A group of companies with a long history of collaborating with SICS, have chosen to join SICS stakeholder group, FDF (Föreningen för Datateknisk Forskning). As members of FDF, these organizations contribute funds for competence development and in return they have influence on the strategic direction of SICS and get preferential rights to exploit the intellectual property of SICS.

Publicly funded research projects
The most common way in which companies and other organizations collaborate with SICS is through publicly funded research projects. These projects are typically funded by either Swedish research funds or by the European Commission. In either case, SICS has good knowledge of currently available funds and how the process works. The funders typically require that the company or organization invest their own time (and sometimes cash) while they fund the research organization, i.e. SICS. The benefit of this model for the customer is that they can get significant leverage on their own investment. The risk involved is that, after investing time in the application, there is no guarantee of actually getting the project funded. Also, exclusive ownership of intellectual property rights may be difficult to achieve in publicly funded projects.

Contract research
The typical situation where contract research may be appropriate is when a company or organization has a specific challenge for which they believe there may be a solution in the realm of computer science research. From the customer's perspective, the benefits of contract research vs. other forms of collaboration include 100% focus on their specific problem, confidentiality, ownership of intellectual property rights, and no time wasted on applying for public funds.

Centers of Excellence
In a Center of Excellence, one or more research organizations cooperate closely with a defined group of companies and other organizations according to a long term research plan and with a common responsibility for commercializing results. SICS hosts one such center, SICS Center for Networked Systems (CNS), and is a member of two more: Mobile Life, hosted by Stockholm University and WISENET, hosted by Uppsala University.

Special Interest Networks
The idea with Special Interest Networks is to gather a group of small and large organizations with a strong interest in one particular field. The group meets approx. twice a year to exchange ideas and discuss common challenges. The focus is informal networking rather than common projects (which may of course emerge as a result of networking). Currently, there is one network set up for sensor networks, and one for multicore programming.

Seminars and speaking engagements
Every year, SICS arranges a number of seminars on a multitude of topics, from innovation to specific technical subjects. The biggest event is SICS Open House day, which is arranged together with our sister institute Interactive Institute. At Open House, a large number of talks are given by both SICS researchers and external speakers. Furthermore, all research groups exhibit their results and prototypes and are available for informal discussions.

SICS researchers with expertise on a variety of subjects are also available for speaking engagements at other organizations' conferences and seminars.

More information
If you would like more information about collaboration with SICS, or if you have an idea that you want to discuss, do not hesitate to contact Ottar Carlheim-Gyllensköld.