Alan Hynes

Director, CCAN

Dr. Alan Hynes is currently Director at the national Collaborative Centre for Applied Nanotechnology (CCAN) in Ireland which he has led since its foundation in 2010 and has grown the centre membership in that time from 7 to 22 companies.  He designed and implemented CCAN’s open innovation model, IP structures and valorization strategies.  He is passionate about translating technologies into profitable products and has 18 years’ industrial experience in new product development and technology commercialisation, in both start-up & multi-national environments.  During that time he has held executive and leadership positions in product development, product marketing and key account management roles serving global customers in electronics, medical device, technical textiles and process technology industries.

Alan is a named inventor on 7 patents, is a member of the EU High Level Group on Nanotechnology and sits on the external advisory board to Tyndall National Institute and on the executive committee of NanoNet Ireland. He has completed PDMA-certification as a New Product Development Professional, holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Durham, England and a first class honours degree in chemistry from NUI Galway, Ireland.

Presentations

Turning KETs into products through value chain based open innovation: Successes and lessons from Ireland

Economic value from research requires effectively joining up the separate but related activities of research and innovation. At a societal level, research creates knowledge and innovation generates value (cash) which ultimately funds further research.  Combining effectively the various players in this value chain is a key challenge if KETs are to be turned into profitable products with associated  economic & societal impact.

In 2010 Enterprise Ireland established the Collaborative Centre for Applied Nanotechnology (CCAN) to enable large and small companies from both ICT and Life Science industries to work together to translate Ireland’s advanced materials expertise into industry-usable technologies.  The CCAN model combines the innovation capacity of industrial value chain partners with the materials research capabilities of the entire country, supported by “best in class” IP and industry co-funding models.

The model works. Involving industry earlier in technology development has seen CCAN exceed all of its original metrics, growing from 7 to 22 companies over 5 years and receiving endorsement from our industry members, academic hosts and external programme evaluators.  The CCAN principles are now being adopted by most new Irish research centres to accelerate multi-company projects and technology valorisation.

As CCAN winds to conclusion in 2016 this talk will present some key learnings (for better and worse!) of the CCAN journey and share some recommendations for success in the hazardous and exciting journey from Key Enabling Technologies to real world product.