Bridging the Valley of Death: A Success Story on Danish Funding Schemes Paving a Path from Technology Readiness Level 1 to 9

Abstract

We report on a success-story in academic-industrial collaboration: The development of a new process technology, all the way from its conception as a potentially interesting idea at the IT University of Copenhagen, to its eventual implementation in a commercial product available from Exformatics A/S proven in operational environment. The process began with academic ideas about formal process models for design and execution of trustworthy, adaptive processes and workflows. Thanks to a strategic research project, the ideas were realised into theoretical foundations and a proof-of-concept prototype implementation validated in the lab. However, we then faced the well-known challenge of moving from the lab to the real world, i.e., Moving from TRL 5 to 7 in H2020 parlance, also known as bridging the "Valley of Death". We identify the key circumstances that made it possible to overcome the challenge: The deployment of academic/industrial knowledge-networks, specific types of smaller funding implements and the "industrial PhD" model.