15.2. Laying the Basis of a Collaborative Innovation Network
Scott Johnson recognized that no one firm, institution, or scientist was going to solve the problem anytime soon. He resolved to find a way to narrow the gap between academic research and new cures for MS by building a network of leading scientists willing to collaborate. The process he followed provides a road map for organizations seeking to build a collaborative innovation network. It comprises five key steps.
15.2.1. 1. Identify and Catalyze the Core
Scott's first step was to understand the network of MS scientists and science and to use this knowledge to build the MRF core network. To that end, he set up a business advisory council—mostly friends and acquaintances who formed the inner core of the network in its early days. He created a vision for the organization that was to become the MRF and set out to share his ideas with the leading scientists in the field of MS.
A turning point in his efforts to gain access to this network came in 2002, when Scott had the good fortune of attending a Gordon Research Conference on myelin. The Gordon Research Conferences are small gatherings of top scientists that provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies.[] Attendance at such a conference is by invitation only, but the chairman, intrigued by Scott's vision, agreed that Scott should join the meeting. This gave him an opportunity to identify some of the most influential researchers in the field and assess who might share his vision of a collaborative approach.
Following the conference, Scott reached out to 40 of these researchers to share his vision for the MRF and invite input on who should be included on the core team. He received feedback from an encouraging 32 researchers with an average three-and-a-half-page response. Scott used the feedback to create a matrix of who was connected to whom, assessed individuals' propensity to collaborate, and reviewed the scientists' published literature to fully understand their areas of focus. From this crude network analysis, he short-listed 7 scientists and then selected 5 whom he would approach.
15.2.2. 2. Align on a Common Vision
All five scientists agreed to participate in a meeting with the MRF advisory board convened by Scott and Dr. Martin Raff, an internationally renowned neuroscientist who is on the jury of the prestigious Lasker Award, a member of the National Academy of Science, and coauthor of Molecular Biology of the Cell, the seminal text on the subject. At this meeting, Scott shared his vision for the MRF and rallied the scientists around a goal to cut the estimated time to develop viable treatment targets from 15 to 20 years down to 5 years through scientific collaboration.
No one had asked the scientists to step up to a tangible goal like that before. Although the possibility of funding was laid on the table, what intrigued and captured the imagination of the scientists was Scott's vision of accelerating their learning and the research process through collaboration.
15.2.3. 3. Build Trust
In the following months and into the fall of 2003, numerous opportunities were created to bring the scientists together so that they could build personal relationships and iron out the details of their collaborative undertaking. Meanwhile, Scott developed a strategic plan for the MRF and raised seed money.
Despite the participants' alignment around the goal, there was some initial resistance to the proposed collaborative research process. This was an entirely new approach, and the scientists were not fully ready to adhere to some essential working guidelines and mechanisms for collaborating, sharing knowledge, learning, and protecting their intellectual property (IP). Fortunately, one of the researchers, Bob Miller, was able to help convince the others of the value of signing on to such a progressive endeavor.
By June 2004, the MRF had raised $1 million in seed capital, and the group formally initiated its research program. The core group of scientists (now referred to as principal investigators, or PIs) and the graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and technicians involved in their respective labs gathered at the kick-off meeting. The PIs shared their current and unpublished research—a highly unusual practice for scientists. In fact, some participants from the labs expressed concern at the level of sharing. The MRF was prepared for this reaction: it had invested significantly in educating the PIs on the importance of confidentiality and how IP could and must be protected in the context of a collaborative undertaking. The MRF also implemented a formal framework to facilitate and ensure this protection.
The meeting set the tone for the network. At the time of the formal kick-off, the group of researchers had spent two years building trust and creating opportunities for interaction. By the time the scientists finally began working together and funding was distributed, they were confident that their ideas would be protected and that they would all benefit from the collaboration. This foundation of trust among the leading researchers enabled the labs to work together on an ongoing basis. Such collaboration, across disciplines and across institutions, is highly unusual in the research world.
When encouraging collaboration of this kind, it is critical to remember that IP is an extremely important, but often overlooked, aspect of trust in collaborative innovation networks. The fear of stolen ideas or unfair compensation or recognition can cause scientists to avoid sharing discoveries and collaborating with others. A key to the MRF's success was its robust approach to protecting IP to foster an environment of trust and transparency among its researchers. The MRF hired lawyers to identify and assess critical IP and then archive it for patent protection, and developed agreements with participating institutions to share royalties on patents filed on any of the discoveries funded by the MRF.
15.2.4. 4. Share Leadership and Accountability
One of the key determinants of the success of collaborative innovation networks is shared leadership and accountability. MRF researchers jointly develop the MRF research plan. They iterate rapidly on the plan, reviewing their results as a group three times a year and refining their approach as necessary, on the basis of progress and any new discoveries. This process both allows and requires them to play a leadership role in setting the MRF's overall direction and research agenda. Further, everyone shares accountability for the results.
This progressive and collaborative approach allows the scientists to work in parallel to solve problems and simultaneously build on one another's progress; each is aware of the work of the other researchers in the network and how it may inform the course of his or her own investigation. This, in turn, accelerates the research process.
15.2.5. 5. Establish Norms of Interaction
How does the MRF work in practice? What are the norms of interaction and communication that enable it to resolve management and communication challenges in academic research and to encourage scientists to collaborate across institutions and disciplines?
MRF's collaborative approach, which it calls the Accelerated Research Collaboration (ARC) model, incorporates a number of mechanisms to ensure that interactions between network members are frequent, easy, and low cost. It does this both by establishing norms of interaction and by facilitating the technology-enabled exchange of rich information. These interaction mechanisms include the following:
A shared technology platform that links all participants.
A practice of sharing results in real time—as soon as a discovery is made, the results are shared with the other members of the network. Transparency and visibility into one another's work reinforce trust and serve as a form of reputational motivation.
Monthly conference calls.
Daily interaction, often facilitated by MRF COO Rusty Bromley and VP for Drug Discovery Jay Tung, who are in constant contact with the labs. Rusty and Jay act as hubs, or bridges, in the network, spanning different groups and facilitating the communication of their diverse ideas among the network members. The existence of network enablers such as Rusty and Jay—senior, well-respected individuals who facilitate the flow of ideas in the network—is also a feature of other successful collaborative innovation networks. For example, at P&G, individuals known as "receptors" help new ideas from outside the organization navigate the requisite internal systems and processes, including senior decision-making forums.
By 2007, it was clear that the MRF's ARC model was highly productive. In less than five years the group had identified 19 potential therapeutic targets, 12 of which are being advanced in further studies.[] As a result, the MRF recognized the need to look at ways to support an accelerated process for validation and commercialization of these targets.