The pathways from experiments to innovation impacts: evidence from ALBA Synchrotron Light Facility
Cerdanyola del Vallès, 30th September 2020 ALBA is celebrating this year the 10th anniversary of its inauguration being an excellent opportunity to start assessing the contribution of this large research infrastructure to the research community and in general to the society. In 2012, ALBA started to host their first official users and since then more than 5000 academic and industrial users have profited from the advanced characterization techniques of ALBA. Every year hundreds of experiments are carried out at ALBA beamlines by the scientific community as well as by private companies for different purposes and covering different fields of research.
The results from the experiments performed at ALBA often may translate into different outcomes, usually into publications but also into innovation developments such as patents, new technologies, new products, etc. that can have an effect both in the industrial community and ultimately in benefits for the society.
In order to address the socio-economic impact of ALBA Synchrotron, a pilot exercise specifically on innovation impact has been performed in the framework of the European research project 'Charting Impact Pathways of Investment in Research Infrastructures' (RIPATHS) co-financed by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. This pilot exercise has been developed by the Centre for Industrial Studies and ALBA to describe and trace the innovation impacts arising from experiments performed at the synchrotron light facility as well as the pathways according to which these impacts materialise.
The pilot exercise comprised electronic surveys to a wide range of academic, industrial and indirect ALBA users, as well as thorough analysis of patents' citations related to ALBA publications. This represents a novel route for ALBA impact identification resulting in 372 patents directly or indirectly citing ALBA publications.
The project RI-PATHS has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No. 777563.
