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. …
Global R&D Funding Forecast: Special mid-year update, Part 1
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)…
R&D 100 – The Podcast is launched with inaugural episode
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…
Addressing the fast-changing challenges of cybersecurity
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…
What are fume hoods?
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…
R&D 100 awards announcement and conference are moving virtual; deadline extended to July 24th
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…
Using metrics in R&D
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…
Keeping an eye on China is more important than ever
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. announces newly established KLA Instruments Group
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…
Expert views on global R&D collaboration, and roles of the U.S. and China
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…
Purair Basic ductless fume hoods
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…
Stackable chilling incubators suitable for protein crystallography
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…
Modernizing research administration solutions to improve response for future crises
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…
Creating an R&D budget
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…
Current R&D challenges
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…
Innovation via industry
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…
Opportunities for Federal R&D dollars
Facing a Federal government shutdown deadline at midnight on Dec. 20th, a Presidential impeachment vote (on Dec. 18th) with a highly polarized Congress, the U.S. Congress, Senate and Administration voted on and signed into law (just hours before the Dec. 20th shutdown deadline) its final appropriations package for FY2020. The package included the Consolidated Appropriations…
Here’s the science behind face mask materials
[Republished from our sister publication, Design World] By Lee Teschler, Executive Editor It looks as though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may end up strongly suggesting that Americans cover their faces in public until the coronavirus pandemic plays out. The Washington Post reports the recommendations now being floated would call for…
Academic R&D continues slow rise
For 2020, U.S. academic researchers will have at their disposal about $90.1 billion-worth of research funds or about 14.8% of the total U.S. R&D expendature. Individual U.S. academic institutions will invest about $23.2 billion (or about 3.8% of the total U.S. R&D investment) of their own resources to support this R&D. Of the R&D that…
Hack the Crisis: How R&D departments are coping
Hardly anyone’s workplace has been spared all the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis. People are working remotely, staggering their hours in laboratories to avoid too many coworkers, and relying heavily on conference calls and video meetings. We spoke to a few industry people to see how they’re coping and innovating. Mark Jones, Executive External Strategy…
2020 R&D 100 Awards submission dates extended
Due to the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 crisis, R&D World has announced an extension of the deadline dates for the R&D 100 Awards program. The standard deadline for submissions is now Friday, June 26th and the late deadline will be Wednesday, July 15th. While the volume of nominations has been strong thus far, many…
U.S. R&D buoyed by government support
[Note: this report was finalized before the current COVID-19 crisis began.] We forecast the U.S. will invest $609.7 billion in R&D in 2020, an increase of 2.2% over the $596.6 billion invested in 2019. U.S. industrial organizations will invest approximately $401.8 billion, a 65.9% share of the total investment. The U.S. government will invest about…
Global R&D investments unabated in spending growth
With this report, R&D World magazine presents — for the 61st time — its annual global R&D funding forecast. This forecast presents unique data on the cumulative resources expected to be invested over the next twelve months by more than 115 countries, numerous industries, universities and governments and innumerable technologies. The world and the science…
5 major advancements that would be eligible for R&D tax credits today
R&D has been changing the world before the term was even coined and in these cases, the impact of the developments made have changed the human race and created the modern world as we know it. “Of course, had these advancements been made today, the work carried out to develop them would have qualified for…
R&D 100 winner plays role in cruise ship evacuation
In 2016, the Containerized Bio-Containment System (CBCS), developed by Kansas City-based MRIGlobal — with support from HHI Corp., GPA Services L.L.C., the U.S. State Department, and The Paul G. Allen Ebola Program — was named one of the R&D 100 winners. The system is a first-of-its-kind, flyable medical transport unit and features full biocontainment. It…






















