Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS International Conference on Microelectronics, Nanoelectronics, Optoelectronics

Proposed Nanotechnology Park in South Wales, Industrial and Organizational Challenges

AHMET KARAKAS ISPAT Investment Support and Promotion Agency of Turkey, UK Research Coordinator University) 14 Harold Street, South Glamorgan, CF24 1PA Cardiff, UK UNITED KINGDOM ahmetkarak@yahoo.com http://www.invest.gov.tr
Abstract: - This study aims to clarify the establishment of the Nanotechnology Park in South Wales .The feasibility is observed through a survey. As the idea is a unique concept, the survey outcome is analyzed together with recent research and it is aimed to fill the gap in the field. Due to the nature of nanotechnology organizations, the challenges of the industry as well as the researchers are observed. The outline and proposed issues to be considered are addressed for a nanotechnology park. Further research recommendations are pointed out through finalizing this study Key-Words: - nanotechnology park South Wales organization challenge commercial

1 Introduction
This study is undertaken in order to see the feasibility of a Nanotechnology Park in South Wales, and its effects on domestic and international entities. The idea of Nanotechnology Park is unique and in the literature there is a gap in this respect. China i , Sri Lanka ii , and India iii recently announced their efforts of establishing nanotechnology parks. All of the attempts are aiming for effectively utilizing technology for example, research institutes and national nanotechnology initiative bodies. However, in preparation of this research main difficulty was the lack of literature in commercialization of nanotechnology. Remarkably, there is lack of the basic aspects of business and behavioral sciences in practice and they are not properly implemented in nanotechnology organizations. In hence a direct location is given as South Wales it is believed that the findings applied to any location and many fields related with nanotechnology. According to the survey, the attitude of the industry members and scientists are observed. Whilst questioning the possible participation to the nanotechnology park, major pitfalls and dilemmas in the field become apparent. Such as the Intellectual property ownership is a major problem among venture capitalists and scientists. It is observed that in order to support the improvements, further research is suggested in various ways.

The survey is conducted in 2 stages. The first stage is to see how feasible the Nanotechnology Park in South Wales, second the prospects of the industry. An online questionnaire was sent to more than 2500 individuals worldwide, iv 124 of them replied to the questionnaire. In order to legitimate the results and to confirm the reliability of the participants, the first question asked about their occupation and involvement with nanotechnology and micro technology. .

2.1 Participant Statistics Majority of the participants were from the USA (40.3%), followed by the UK (25.8%) and Germany (7.3%), and the responses from other countries were evenly balanced, can be seen in figure 2. Organization types of the respondents can be seen in the following figure as the vast majority are private companies (63%) followed by academic organizations (22%).

2 Survey Analysis

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Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS International Conference on Microelectronics, Nanoelectronics, Optoelectronics

Private Organization technology plc, ltd etc 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Academic Organization

25.00% 20.83% 20.00%

Private Organization finance plc, ltd etc Other (Optional)

15.83% 15.00% 14.17%

less than 10.000 13.33% 12.50% between 10.000-100.000 between 100.001-1000.000 between 1000.0001-10.000.000 between 10.000.001-25.000.000 between 25.000.001-50.000.000 more than 50.000.000 N/A

10.00%

10.00% 7.50% 5.83%

International Non-Profit
5.00%

Governmental Organization Domestic Non-Profit

0.00%

Fig 4 Research and Development Budget of the participants

Fig 1 Participant Organizations

45.0 40.3 40.0 35.0 30.0 25.8 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 HU IN CH G B DE CA DK M Y US IE HK AU BE FR n/a AT NL IT 7.3 4.8 4.0 4.0 2.4 1.6 1.6 1.6 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8

2.2

Participants attitudes

2.2.1 Supplying funds to other companies Majority of the participants (63%) do not supply funds to other companies for R&D, However 23% stated that they are supplying funds.
70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% No N/A 23.33% 13.33% Yes 63.33%

Fig 2 Participant geographical location Also in figure 3 the involvement level of organizations to nanotechnology and microtechnology is interpreted
80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% 6.50% 1.63% 0.81% 0.00% 24.39% 66.67% Extremely related Highly related Moderately Related Somewhat related Slightly related Not Related at all

20.00% 10.00% 0.00%

Figure 5 Participants attitude for supplying funds to other companies for R&D 2.2.2 Supplying funds to nanotechnology business start-ups In the figure 6 it is shown that 40% of the participants stated not applicable due to nature of their organization. However, it is interesting that approximately 13% is positive and 31% stated their response depending on the reliability of the project.
45.00% 40.00% 40.00% N/A 31.11% Decision depends on the projects reliability and future prospects Negative 15.56% 13.33% Positive

Fig 3 Involvement nanotechnology

level

of

participants

to

2.1.1 Research and Development Budgets In figure 4 the R&D budgets of the participants are shown. It is fairly distributed from less than 10.000 to more than 50 million.

35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00%

Figure 6 Attitude of participants for nanotechnology and micro technology business start-up funding requests

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Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS International Conference on Microelectronics, Nanoelectronics, Optoelectronics

2.2.3 Nanotechnology Park At this stage the participants responses show their attitude for a Nanotechnology Park by means of participation and potential support for establishment. As can be seen in figure 7, vast majority of the participants have positive attitude to a business park focused of specifically micro technology and nanotechnology
40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% 3.06% 0.00% 0.00% 13.27% 12.24% 36.73% 34.69%

Fig 9 Potential support of participants to a nanotechnology park And their level of participation is shown in figure 10. Majority of R&D with 42% and 14% of manufacturing level can be interpreted as the current stage of improvements in the industry.
45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 32.81% 42.19% Research and Development Other Manufacturing 14.06% 6.25% 4.69% Marketing Representative level

Highly positive Positive Slightly positive Neutral Slightly negative Negative Highly Negative

20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00%

Fig 10 Level of participation of the respondents to a proposed nanotechnology park Main reasons to participate for the respondents is stated in figure 11. Availability of project based funds and start-up funds are chosen by more than half of the respondents. Comparing to other factors, it can be interpreted as a major requirement for the whole field.
Availability of project based funding&grants Availability of start-up funding& grants Other Tax incentives
10.71% 8.93% 7.14%

Fig 7 Attitude to a business park focused on nanotechnology and micro technology. When addressed a direct location of South Wales, majority remained neutral and more than 20% showed positive attitude.
60.00% 50.00% Slightly negative 40.00% 30.00% 22.11% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% 4.21% 1.05% 13.68% 2.11% Slightly positive Positive Neutral Negative Highly positive Highly Negative 1.05% 55.79%

35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00%

31.25%

21.43% 20.54%

Utility infrastructures Logistical location

Fig 8 Attitude of Nanotechnology Park to be established in South Wales They were also asked if they would support the establishment of a nanotechnology park that may lead to commercial start-ups, regardless to location. As can be seen in figure 9 positive response is 12% but maybe is 32% leaving a positive potential.
35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% Maybe No N/A 12.22% Yes 32.22% 27.78% 27.78%

Fig. 11 Main reasons to participate in the nanotechnology park

3 Challenges 3.1 Addressing the challenges

After analyzing the survey results with the open ended responses a proposed nanotechnology park has to involve with all aspects of organization, legal, behavioral social sciences. The reason for this statement is the following complaints of the respondents; - Scientists & Engineers do not understand business (whole product, value chain, supply chain, market segmentation, etc.) or communicate well with investors, large corporations, or business people in general - Aggresive IP policies at Academic Institutions, which expect full ownership of developments

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Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS International Conference on Microelectronics, Nanoelectronics, Optoelectronics

even when funded and mainly carried out by private organization, do not encourage collaboration and consequent faster progress. In nanotechnology there are literally hundreds of patents and many of the technologies have only been developed to proof of concept stage which makes it difficult to commercialise or find a co-development partner. Additionally, many of the technologies (from a biotech prospective) have not delivered value yet. Are there customers? Do they need the products? Incoherent or sporadic government support

findings as a social organization the authority should have the attitude of serving to science and the society. As final products are encouraged it will be easier for further funding and research. In addition qualified human resource is another issue to be focussed on. If successfully established in anywhere, it will be an attractive location for foreign investments as well as domestic development

4 Conclusion
Finally, this paper stated the potential of a Nanotechnology Park in South Wales. Also the lack of social sciences in the multidiscipline structure of Nanotechnology is addressed. In addition further research is suggested for any similar nanotechnology organization and involvement of traditional social sciences to nanotechnology organizations. Nanotechnology is an innovative field, but the problems faced are traditional. References:
AzoNanotechnology News, 11 Nov 2003, http://www.azonano.com/details.asp?A rticleID=99 ii NSTI News, 19 Aug 2008, http://www.nsti.org/news/breaking.htm l?id=273 iii NanoWerk news, 29 Aug 2007, http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsi d=2442.php iv Questionpro.com online survey tools is used for conducting the survey v Milter, Serrato, Represas,-Cardenas, Kundahl, The Handbook of Nanotechnology Business, Policy, and Intellectual Property Law John Wiley & Sons, Inc 2004 vi Dr Adarsh Sandhu, Eight Days in nano Europe. Advanced Semiconductor Magazine Vol. XVII 2004 No VIII p41 vii Sheetz, Vidal, Pearson, Lozano et, al. Nanotechnology: Awareness and societal concerns ,Technology in Society, Volume XXVII, Issue III, August 2005, pp329-345
i

Literally there have been some books v and articles in this respect. The addressed comments are interesting as for decades the cooperation of the industry and the university is being emphasized, and it seems like successful in most cases. However the critics for the scientists is questionable in respect to the nature of Nanotechnology multidiscipline field Mostly it is involved with engineering, information technologies, healthcare, earth and environment sciences vi . Societal issues are concerned as the lifestyle change or just pointing out the impacts of future improvements to the society. vii If we include the comment of Are there customers? Do they need the products? considerable, it is clear that there are hundreds of nanotechnology involved products in the market. These are just minor attempts comparing to worldwide research activities. Also Intellectual Property does not have any value unless converted to a product and served to consumers. This is addressed by venture capitalists comparing to the clash of dot com companies. The issue which has to be emphasized in this point is, Social Sciences are not involved to the multidiscipline nanotechnology organisations themselves in satisfaction level. Thinking just Business or Commercialization does not make any sense without involvement of behavioural sciences. This is against the generic business culture as well. As it is a common fact that Organization Behaviour applies to all business and organizations as well. Further research is necessary in these aspects such as the ownership conflicts of IP, funding issues.

3.2 Structure of a Nanotechnology Park

Building just a business park does not make any difference but, building a nanotechnology park aiming final products, sustainable support to the researchers, and industry professionals are fundamental requirements. Also according to the

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