Role of Research in PTC

by: Richard Taylor, Co-Chair, PTC Research Committee and Professor, Pennsylvania State University.

At PTC'08, 38 educators & researchers met for discussions during the annual luncheon on Monday 14 January and 44 participants attended the Research Roundtable on Wed 16 January, 1015-1115 that focused on the role of research in PTC.

The roundtable featured Yale Braunstein. Professor, University of California-Berkeley; Tony Gardiner a business consultant, Vancouver, Canada; Heather Hudson; Professor, University of San Francisco; and Claire Paponneau, Executive Vice President, France Telecom-Orange; with myself as Chair. After brief introductions, each member had 3-5 minutes for remarks to set the stage. The session was then thrown open to the attendees for participation, which was vigorous. Discussion time was split about half-and-half between the participants’ remarks and the interventions of the attendees.

Heather Hudson, Co-Chair of the Research Committee, made general comments regarding the status of research in PTC's history and how it is perceived. She suggested that the value of academic contributions to the for-profit sector was in relation to the development of emerging markets. She further suggested that research has an importance to business in terms of the value of identifying and understanding trends. Research for the purposes of PTC needs to be empirical and real-world based (not theoretical). She also underscored the value of PTC itself in its diversity with a mix of industry, vendor, government, research and other interests. A number of process issues that are of particular concern to researchers and academics were also mentioned with regards to the importance of the proposals, reviews, papers and proceedings of the conference.

Yale Braunstein described with examples how policy influences research and research influences policy. He described his concerns with how PTC manages the publication of papers and the distribution of papers and information. He suggested that some relatively simple changes could be made to make the paper process more user-friendly for academics who need to show publications.

Tony Gardiner spoke of the importance of good models for policy makers. Good telecommunications policies help improve sectoral importance. He claimed that the role of research in telecommunications is to help assist policy makers to make informed choices. Scholarship can be especially helpful in areas such as economic regulation and consumer protection. This is a great benefit to policy makers, especially those struggling with new technologies. It also introduces the public interest when considering the impact of change. He is constantly scanning available research. Good policies make good markets, and scholars can help identify generic aspects of change across countries.

Claire Paponneau said she was speaking as “the voice of the users.” France Telecom/Orange has 15 laboratories, so obviously they believe in research. “One cannot say ‘he knows’ without research”.

But as a business person, her number one priority at PTC is the meeting, and business networking. PTC is about sharing strategy. Sessions are “cherry-picked” depending on how useful the particular presentation/paper might be. Successful networking at PTC includes meetings with consultants, researchers and regulators. That is PTC’s value beyond just a trade show.

What she would like to find:

1. Key element is the ability to share and understand trends in the industry, especially in regard to Asia/Pacific/Oceania. Understand how the “digital divide” is addressed in different countries, both developing and mature countries. Sympathetic to underserved audiences such as seniors.

2. Needs input from the researchers at the conference, but doesn’t want to read the papers. Abstracts should be written for businesspeople telling them what is new and/or important, and highlighting that with respect to the sessions. The research community needs to help the business community find ways to find good research.

3. PTC should keep the mix/balance it has of attendees. This is its unique feature. PTC is the only conference where one finds a broad range from the academics to the policy makers.

Discussion followed, including:

Researchers need to listen to the “customers” for their research. How can they convey what is important to them; how can they find out what business people want and can use?

Tom Cooper suggested there be a version of “match.com” for matching research abstracts with interests (executives don’t want to read the typical academic abstracts, they need the research findings put in their language). He also suggested a “catch of the day” approach to highlight one or a few papers of special interest to the for-profit sector.

An attendee asked how academic research can be relevant and timely because researchers don’t have access to the real-time data that corporations have. This opened the door to the general suggestion that cooperation between the R&E community and the for-profit community should be a two-way street. Companies should make data available to qualified researchers, and support appropriate research of common interest.

The challenge will be for the Research Committee to move forward with an action plan from this for consideration in organizing PTC'09.