MBT057 – How to turn an innovation into a product

Published: May 1, 2020, 3:48 p.m.

Here comes MBT057, another episode in English. We talked to Peter van Arkel, who started out as a physicist and now works as a consultant on technological innovation and project development. When a new discovery is made or innovation is invented in the lab by a scientist or engineer, there are usually many steps on the way to a product suitable for large-scale production and directly useful for industry. This is where people like Peter come in, who bring together people from research and industry, create a roadmap and try to bridge the differences and language barriers between the different fields. Now, Peter is also working on a PhD project close to these question, where the aim is to understand why such a collaboration between people from different fields sometimes does work, and why it sometimes does not. More details in the interview. Enjoy! This interview was recorded at the International Conference of Physics students in Cologne on 13 August 2019.