Abstract:

Research creates several competitive advantageous for companies. Industry has many business challenges but often does not have the methodologies and research tools that allow companies to resolve them quickly. For these reasons, there is an opportunity for collaboration between companies and universities that could support the organization of planning and the achievement of operational goals by research teams and improve methodology knowledge.

The paper describes experience gained from cooperation between a higher education institution and the telecommunication industry. Maria Curie-Skłodowska University has developed a matching grant Innovation Incubator to strengthen the links between research, higher education and business. In particular, the institution is motivated by a desire to develop a decision support system in electricity consumption management,the overall goal of this project is to improve the decision support methodologies for electricity data management with statistical techniques and decision making methods. In order to achieve this goal, the specific objectives of the proposed project are provided.

The project develops Data Mining and Multi Criteria Decision Making techniques to improve decision support systems for electricity information management. The project is divided into three parts. The first part of the project focuses on finding the most accurate and efficient statistical methods to provide useful information about energy consumption, or predict energy use in different conditions. The second part handles the decision making process to select optimal energy tariffs. The third part translates the research results of energy-related data into guidelines and recommendations for business partners .

The paper examines the sustainability of the collaboration experience by focusing on the outcomes between the university research community and companies. Our findings suggest that university – industry collaboration generates synergetic effects, brings new prospects for research funds, develops new methods for solving business problems, and intensifies the relevance of research and education programs. Best practices for collaboration projects are also suggested.

Keywords:

Business-science cooperation, energy consumption, decision support project, research and development, synergy.