Paul Heney

China and Asian R&D During the 2008-2009 financial crisis, China’s massive demand for goods and materials supported global economic growth, especially in areas like Brazil, Germany and Australia, which avoided recessions because of Chinese trade. That type of response for the COVID-19 pandemic is not likely this year. China’s economy was affected more in 2020…

A DNA sequencer is a machine which automatically determines the sequence of nucleotides in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the fundamental code which stores genetic information. DNA is a complex molecule made up of two long polynucleotide chains, known as strands, coiled around each other to form a double helix. Each strand is built up from a…

European Union/U.K. R&D Like most other regions of the world, the European Union (EU) and the U.K. have been caught in the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and economic consequences. In April, the U.K., the world’s sixth largest economy, saw its output drop 20% from March and 25% from April 2019. The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics…

Energy R&D With the COVID-19 recession, restricted travel and dramatically reduced aerospace demand, demand and production of oil and gas declined more than 20% in the spring. Global oil prices crashed in April. The West Texas and Eastern New Mexico Permian Basin, with its fracking technologies, helped lead the U.S. into global oil leadership just…

Aerospace and defense R&D The commercial airline industry — both suppliers and operators — has been one of the hardest hit industries by the COVID-19 pandemic and is likely to be one of the longest affected industries as well. Boeing, Airbus and General Electric have seen their business models go from years-long production backlogs to…

A burette is used to dispense small volumes of liquid called aliquots, or sometimes gas, with high accuracy. It consists of a long glass tube with a valve at one end to control the flow of liquid. Burettes serve essentially the same purpose as a pipette. Volumetric burettes are manual instruments with graduations inscribed on…

Global pharmaceutical R&D The global biopharmaceutical R&D community has been tasked with finding a cure for the COVID-19 virus. The global health-care industry, up until this pandemic, had been one of the best performing sectors for the investment community. But since the rapid global expansion of the COVID-19 virus in April 2020, it has been…

Putting COVID-19 in perspective The COVID-19 pandemic is not unique. There have been similar events throughout history, including the H1N1-based influenza pandemic (Spanish Flu), which started in 1918 and was estimated to result in 50 million deaths worldwide (and 675,000 in the U.S.). The H3N2-based Hong Kong flu pandemic in 1968 was estimated to be…

This year’s iteration of the esteemed R&D 100 awards features a judging panel comprised of nearly 50 professionals from across the globe, who boast an impressive collection of accomplishments and honors. Following are short bios of our 2020 judges, who have been working tirelessly to review and rate the substantial amount of entries received.  …

By Tim Studt This special editorial section is an update to R&D World’s 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast (GFF), which has been published annually since January 1959 (the first issue of R&D World’s predecessor, Industrial Research). The original 2020 GFF was created and published in the February 2020 issue of R&D World (and online at www.rdworldonline.com)…

The R&D 100 Awards has been a critical part of the industry for more than half a century, honoring the best innovations around the world every year. The annual awards banquet is a must-attend event, and the associated Conference has become a great place for learning from the best of the best. But there are…

What scientists and engineers need to know to help keep software, hardware and connected systems secure By Patricia Panchak, Contributing Writer In the cat-and-mouse struggle against bad actors in our inter-networked world, scientists and engineers are on the front lines. As developers of technology that can mean the difference between an adversarial breach and a…

A fume hood is a workstation designed to limit exposure to hazardous fumes. Fume hoods are typically mounted over work surfaces. They partially enclose the work surface, leaving the front open that so the worker can reach inside. The interior volume is ventilated so that there is a constant flow of air into the open…

CLEVELAND — Due to heightened travel concerns with the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, the R&D World staff has decided to reformat the planned in-person R&D 100 Conference and Awards banquet into virtual events. Thanks to the increased flexibility in timing that this gives our team, we are also allowing a short extension for submissions to the…

By Anne Marie Knott To set the stage for a discussion of R&D metrics, let’s understand why companies do R&D in the first place. This takes us back to the beginning of the 20th Century. Companies formed labs to create new opportunities. In some cases, this was because existing business was disappearing and needed to…

By about 2025, China will likely surpass the U.S. for the first time ever in the amount of dollars spent on R&D. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to sit down with Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a first-term congresswoman from southeastern Pennsylvania (and an industrial engineer), who sits on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’…

KLA Corp. has announced the formation of KLA Instruments, a group that develops, markets and services measurement and defect inspection systems that are used primarily by research and development departments in universities and industrial labs. KLA Instruments offers a portfolio of products including optical and stylus profilometers, nanoindenters, benchtop film metrology systems and specialized defect…

By Becky Chambers Hennessy Collaboration is among the flagship strategies of innovation for research scientists, engineers and technical professionals. Here, three R&D experts weigh in on China as it rises to become the world’s top R&D investor. They also address some of the benefits and challenges of openness in research, and the inclusion of foreign…

A look at whether “to innovate, collaborate” is always the best strategy when it comes to global R&D By Becky Chambers Hennessy If ever there were a need for innovation through intellectual exchange and collaboration it is this: the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), reportedly first identified in China. R&D experts worldwide know this, and the U.S.…

The Purair Basic ductless fume hoods are designed to provide high level performance features at an affordable price.The hoods are found in research laboratories, educational facilities, and forensic laboratories throughout the world and are designed to protect the user and the environment from hazardous vapors generated on the work surface. At the heart of the…

Torrey Pines Scientific has announced the new EchoTherm Stackable/ Programmable Vibration Free Chilling Incubators for protein crystallography and other life science uses. The incubators are 27-liter capacity and Peltier-based for heating and chilling. They have no compressors or CFCs and are vibration-free making them ideal for doing protein crystallizations. Other applications include incubating marine samples…

By Matt McLellan, CEO Cayuse and Thomas Piechota, VP of Research, Chapman University As research groups work vigorously to continue to understand COVID-19 and develop a potential vaccine, inefficient research administration systems can lead to costly delays in securing and managing funding and allowing researchers to focus on what is important — the technical aspects…

The assembly of an R&D budget is a complicated process, often involving inputs from multiple organizations and/or departments. It also involves getting approvals from supervisors, from supervisors’ supervisors, and from other people with whom you may not work outside budgeting times. There are multiple factors involved in creating an R&D budget, from revenue growth to…

Technology growth in the R&D environment appears to be continuous and without much letup or increase in the rate of change. According to the respondents to R&D World magazine’s 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast reader survey, performed in September 2019, most researchers have seen significant technology changes over the past year (September 2018 to September…

In the U.S., about 66% of the R&D is performed by industrial organizations, 27% is performed by the federal government and the remaining 7% is performed by academia and non-profit organizations. In Mexico, those ratios are about 51% by industry, 19% by government and 27% by academia. In Sweden it’s 74% by industry, 13% by…