Like many who steer the course of technology R&D, my career followed no deliberate path—it meandered. University days breezed by. A PhD captured my curiosity, then a PostDoc, and another. I then flirted with Academia briefly, but eventually found a research job in Industry. A few years later, I found myself leading an R&D team, and managing 7-figure budgets. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, everything stoped, and that gave me some time to ask myself… How did that happen? When did I transition from a scientist, to a manager? I had no formal management “qualifications” and had only undergone some training “on-demand”. Speaking to friends and colleagues, I discovered that this trajectory was not uncommon, and thus I became interested in the broader topic of R&D management.

Four years and 200 pages later, together with Mykola Maksymenko and Stephen Russo, we’ve managed to distill our knowledge and experiences into a soon-to-be published book entitled “R&D Management and Technology Commercialization: Practical Concepts and Cases for Technology Innovation Professionals”. Importantly, this book isn't simply a rehashing of academic theories on R&D management nor reflections from aloof executives. It is a manual forged in the fires of firsthand experience—a guide from the trenches.

I’m therefore pleased and humbled to share with you here a preview of our book’s preface, and ask for your help, by writing us a short review at the end of the page:

Preface

R&D in the technology space is often seen as a risky and costly endeavor requiring careful organizational design and management to achieve successful outcomes. It is also often confused with fundamental science research, while it is clearly much more than that, spanning a wealth of activities including applied and market research. On the other hand, what makes it attractive to companies around the world is that technological innovations and products, developed through the processes we will describe in this book, can provide a significant competitive advantage to sustain and slingshot businesses into the future. Indeed, according to a 2023 report, R&D spending by the top 2,500 corporate R&D spenders crossed the €1.3 trillion mark in 2022.

This premise further encourages organizations, large and small, to set up their own in-house R&D labs, which of course comes with many challenges and uncertainties:

• How to align R&D with the rest of the organization?

• What kind of people to onboard for R&D?

• What to research among different possible directions?

• What metrics should be measured?

• How to move technology from the lab to the market?

Hence, setting up an efficient R&D structure and process becomes extremely important. This book will guide you through that process with useful information addressing all the above points. 

Traditional views often narrow R&D to a technical endeavor, detached from broader innovation. This limits its perceived role in invention and foundational research. Rather, a more holistic understanding sees R&D as a crucial block to both product development and scientific progress. Integrating R&D into the entire innovation cycle, from basic research to applied solutions, highlights its importance in advancing long-term technological and societal evolution. This approach enables R&D to drive continuous innovation and discovery, benefiting stakeholders with impactful returns.

In our combined experience, we the authors of this book believe that there is no single correct approach to organizing and managing R&D. It is also often misleading to view R&D as just managing high-risk and high-uncertainty projects. Research activity may require different types of people, culture, and ideas management as well as organizational structures to support it. Otherwise, some of the typical issues may arise that can lead to the failure of the overall R&D initiative: 

• Research takes too long and is hard to estimate.

• Agenda becomes too esoteric and disconnected from the application and business strategy.

• The team is overly focused only on high-performing solutions but ignores quick or sub-optimal alternatives.

• There is a widening gap between research and market application. 

Thus, to address these challenges, one must start by recognising that managing R&D is not merely about overseeing technical tasks but also about leading people, strategizing, and driving innovative outcomes that align with business goals. Also, leaders in R&D roles must learn how to navigate the delicate balance of maintaining technical excellence while fostering the strategic acumen required when answering to C-level corporate management.

But how are such skills and knowhow obtained? How does a scientist or research engineer transform into an effective R&D manager and/or team leader? Do they take a course, undergo formal training, or are they promoted into such roles and then left to self-learn how to swim in the deep end?

Insights from esteemed publications like the Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review highlight that effective leadership in R&D should adopt a customer/user-centric approach to innovation, ensuring that new developments closely align with user needs and market demands. For instance, effective R&D leadership involves integrating R&D efforts with broader organizational functions such as sales and operations to ensure innovations are practical and well-supported across the business. Building strategic capabilities, such as technological mastery and operational efficiency, is crucial for sustaining innovation and responding adaptively to industry shifts, such as digital transformation, open innovation, and sustainability trends (e.g., net zero carbon). Leadership in R&D therefore also demands guiding teams through these transitions with a focus on strategic development, adapting to new technologies, and investing in new capabilities.

To that end, this book aims to present its readers with a practical guide towards building and managing an R&D function within a business organization. It targets management or senior researchers whose responsibilities cover managing or decision-making on investments, resources, and operations relating to R&D. Moreover, this book provides frameworks for establishing, structuring, operating, and growing the R&D function: hiring people, managing ideas, strategies, budgets, culture, intellectual property (IP), commercialization roadmaps, and ecosystems. 

We, the authors of this book, have diverse hands-on and in-the-field experience in small, medium, and large R&D organizations, both in industry and in academia. Our combined expertise covers building an R&D function from zero, running in-depth technology research programs, growing deep-tech start-ups, protecting and commercializing IP artifacts, building an open-innovation ecosystem, and utilizing public funding sources. To that end, over the last 4 years, we have strived to put this book together and paint a compelling and complete picture of how to best structure and run an R&D program in an industrial setting.

Our aim is simple. We aim that everyone who reads this book learns something new, begins to see new opportunities for positive change within their workplace, and becomes a better R&D manager.

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