Communication with Companies Comes Natural to Us, Says Vice-Dean Matyáš

Of all the MU faculties the Informatics probably has the most complex system of partnerships with private companies. Which parts of the faculty’s life does this cooperation concern?

I’d say pretty much all of them. We’re not trying to limit the cooperation. There is a certain portfolio of activities that companies usually do and which we’re offering to prospective partners. If, however, a company comes up with an idea which we like and it is not against the university policy, we’re all for it.

Building an “ecosystem” such as the one at the Faculty of Informatics is a long-term effort. What obstacles did you encounter along the way?

W e came across a number of things and we’re still learning. One of these things is that companies primarily want to gain access to students and graduates to enlist new, potentially attractive employees. However, this is not our priority and we need to make it clear at the very beginning. We’re interested in what the companies need but, on the other hand, we do not intend to groom our graduates only to have them employed in the given company right after their graduation. Our responsibility towards graduates is much broader. We want them to understand how things work in general. So that in 10 or 20 years they’re still capable of creative work in the field of IT. That’s what we’re trying to explain to companies.

In what ways does the faculty benefit from this cooperation?

I’d say there are two types of benefits. Some of them are almost immediate, for instance a first-rate diploma thesis the results of which are applicable right away. Other aspects of this cooperation yield results after a considerably longer time. Besides taking part in the education, it is project cooperation. Nowadays there are more and more grant calls aimed at cooperation with the industry. Communication with companies comes so natural to us that arranging a joint project with an industrial partner is a question of several phone calls or e-mails. Companies trust us. They know that the cooperation won’t be merely formal and its results will be truly useful to both parties.

What are your criteria for the cooperation? Are there more companies than you can accept?

The last 2 or 3 years the demand for cooperation has indeed exceeded the offer and we had to turn some companies down. It’s important that we agree on a specialist subject to be used at least for supervising diploma theses. However, there are companies interested in becoming members of AIP that deal with such routine things that our laboratories are simply not interested.

What is the main difference in the attitude towards cooperation in the Czech Republic or in Central Europe and overseas? Do you find a lot of inspiration abroad?

W e’re taking trips abroad and doing our best to make good use of the experience. That’s also why one can see principles applied at AIP or at the faculty which were taken over from abroad. An American university is in many ways different from a Central European one and not all the principles are necessarily transferable. However, in the USA it is perfectly normal for a person from a university to talk with someone from a private company. They both have their interests and principles and they either come to an agreement or they don’t; nonetheless, it is normal to discuss things in a civilized manner and say either yes or no. That’s something we’re still not very good at here in Central Europe.

Do you have a vision regarding the development of the cooperation with the industry at your faculty?

Some labs pursue the collaboration thoroughly, they have mostly positive experience with it and they know how to do it. At the moment, the biggest woe of the faculty is that three of its research groups account for more than 80 % of the collaboration. My priority is to devote myself to developing cooperation where it hasn’t been doing that great so far. We’d also like to further advance the support of PhD students.

It this model transferable to other MU faculties, or is information science so specific a field that it is simply not viable?

Information science is no doubt special in that there is an extreme demand for graduates from the industry. But even back when it wasn’t as extreme as today, our cooperation with the industry was much more successful than anywhere else at the university. A number of things that constitute our model are certainly transferable to other faculties; however, it is not possible to simply take it as it is and apply it somewhere else. Any faculty which is interested in starting a systematic collaboration with the industry first has to openly and frankly state its current priorities and what it wants to accomplish in the medium-term perspective.

What do you think the university as a whole should change?

The university management should really want to establish such cooperation which, in my opinion, they still don’t. The strategy regarding cooperation with the industry is still not clearly defined. Certain things are required from the Technology Transfer Office, something else from the Career Centre or other departments and there is little to none coordination among these. The system at our faculty was created years ago to fill the void. Unfortunately, in 12 years the University still hasn’t caught up with us and I still don’t see it making any real effort to do so.