7. Improving the efficiency of industry access to RTD.

There are a number of measures which are improving or have the potential to improve the efficiency of access to the international RTD market in the upstream oil and gas sector. These are listed below:

• availability of databases on current/recent international RTD projects of relevance to E&P;
• availability of databases on international RTD capability and facilities;
• wider dissemination to the international RTD marketplace of information on company- and/or projectspecific requirement in orderto attract new capabilityto work on E&P issues and to set up greater competitiveness in bidding for RTD contracts;
• minimum industry-wide standard for unsolicited RTD project proposal format to ensure that appropriate information is supplied for within-company evaluation;
• staged process for unsolicited RTD proposal submission, with informative synoptic proposals submitted initially in order to assess levels of support and to gain early feedback on content from potential client companies, followed by full proposal as appropriate;
• standardisation of RTD contracts;
• communication of opportunities/interest in take-up of "sleeping" technology, i.e. outcomes of previous RTD projects which are considered still to have potential applications but require a new champion and/or collaborative action to realise their full potential.

Much of the above can be facilitated by the use of information technology to provide international access to and communication of RTD information.

To improve communication and to assess more readily the match between requirement/ opportunity/ availability in RTD and new technology, there is merit in the development and use of widely accepted templates upon which to map RTD requirement, project activity and emerging technology against a set of descriptive parameters.

Support from public funds for fundamental, curiositydriven research conducted by high quality and well equipped research groups will continue to provide important, albeit unpredictable, contributions to the advance of know-how and technology required by industry. However the translation from curiosity-driven to needs-driven research can be promoted by improved, regular information exchange between the stakeholders, especially from industry towards the research community. Attracting groups engaged in basic research to participate in more applied, industry-funded projects and programmes will be beneficial.

A major challenge for industry is how bestto utilise the RTD capability which exists internationally. In many cases, the best competences to address industry challenges will be harnessed only through networking of RTD groups. There is a need to optimise the dispersed capabilities which exist and to avoid dissipation of resources among individual research groups working on "marginal" projects (see also Thomassen, 1995). Client companies defining their own needs and then inviting competent groups to participate in the developmentand conductof research programmeswill contribute to greater efficiency and success in applied research. This proactive approach, already followed by a small number of major companies, is likely to spread not least as a consequence of the increased linkage between RTD investment and business need.

Last Updated 9/9/96