2.1.1. Non-routine and knowledge intensive work

R&D activities are non-routine and unusual in that they are aimed at building new knowledge and artifacts. They differ from the activities performed by other functions of the enterprise, which are more stable or cyclical, more predictable and therefore more pre-determinable and manageable. This uniqueness is a common trait for R&D business, even beyond the differences between the “R” and “D ”works.

The Frascati Manual of the OECD [OEC 02, p. 34] specifies that the term R&D – creative work undertaken systematically to increase the knowledge base for developing new applications – refers to three activities, namely basic research, applied research and experimental development. Basic research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use. Applied research also involves original work undertaken with a view to acquiring new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily toward a specific practical aim or objective. Experimental development is systematic work based on existing knowledge gained through research and/or practical experience, in order to begin the manufacturing of new materials, products or appliances; to establish new techniques, systems and services or to improve the already existing ones.

While activity differs on whether the upstream part of R&D (the “R” geared toward exploration and ideation) or the downstream part (the “D” geared toward the development and implementation of innovations) is considered, the common dimension is the work on the new ideas and artifacts. In fact, the mission of the R, as with the D, stops with the invention and demonstration of its functionality at a technical level. Then, other professions in the company take over the management of day-to-day operations that arise from the development of product or process innovation.

Another characteristic of R&D business is its fundamentally uncertain nature. This uncertainty is linked to the quest for novelty, and it is even more powerful when the upstream exploration activities are considered. In research, unpredictability is considerable, one never knows ex ante what we will find exactly, or at what time horizon, or even sometimes if we are going to find anything, never mind knowing what volume we are going to sell and at what price, etc. The concept of serendipity emphasizes the fact that we may end up with unexpected results in comparison to initial objectives. In the field of development, the degrees of uncertainty are lower on technical and economic levels, as well as in terms of feasibility and value. Therefore, Le Masson et al. [LEM 06] define development as “a controlled process which activates skills and existing knowledge to specify a system (product, process or organization) which should respond to well-defined criteria (quality, cost, deadlines) and whose value has already been clearly conceptualized or even evaluated”. However, unforeseen difficulties may occur and alter the timescale, costs and specifics of the object under development. Across the business sectors, failure rates in R&D can be very high (see also Chapter 6); therefore, in pharmacy, more than 95% of projects are abandoned, considering that a laboratory launches a very large number of small competitive projects, but with a low rate of success. In contrast, a car manufacturer only simultaneously accepts a limited number of new vehicle design projects; however, the economic stakes of each are very high. Uncertainty is weaker here; projects generally convert to business when they go to market, all the more so in cases where the projects form part of a product line [LEM 06], for example, Renault with the successive models of Clio.

Depending on the industry, R&D encompasses wide-ranging scenarios. Companies ʼstrategies in terms of innovation (see Chapter 1) also heavily influence the R&D activities that are undertaken within. Therefore, in some cases, the R&D function consists essentially of development activities because of the low-tech nature of the sector and/or because the enterprise strategy pivots on incremental innovation, in an operational logic (March 1991). In other cases, in hi-tech sectors and when the company strategy targets the introduction of break-through innovations, research activities will be also present, with varying importance, alongside development activities, in order to support the exploration logic (March 1991). We must consider therefore the distribution of tasks between R and D, beyond the clusters that globally quantify overall input into R&D (expenditure as an absolute amount or as a percentage of turnover, workforce in R&D and percentage of the global workforce).

In the enterprises that actually perform the work of R and D, different structural choices have been made: in some, R and D are carried out by the same professionals who share their time between these different activities; in others, R and D are quite separate. The question which arises here and which is not clear-cut is how to succeed in being ambidextrous [TUS 96], i.e. how to jointly meet the requirements of operational innovation based on the efficient use of technological and marketing skills existing in the company and the requirements of exploratory innovation that requires the renewal of these skills on one or another of these dimensions. Organizational ambidexterity is when the development and exploration activities are separated, and contextual ambidexterity [GIB 04] is when they are carried out within the same plants by the same people (see Box 2.1 for an illustration).

The definition of exploration innovations (above) emphasizes the fact that they rely on a renewal of skills in the areas of technology and/or marketing. While operational innovations are part of a greater continuity, in a context of incremental improvement compared to the existing one, they are also based on highly developed knowledge and expertise. This is another characteristic of R&D – to be knowledge-intensive: knowledge being the raw material to R&D. Knowledge is the essential input to research activities, which aims to exceed the current state of knowledge (see the above definition of R). Knowledge – particularly but not only the one produced by the R in-house – is also critical for the D (see the definition by the Frascati Manual). Knowledge is also the output of R. With regard to the D, even though it is not its primary mission, it produces knowledge due to the development of new artifacts. R&D professionals are archetypes of knowledge workers who have become essential in our knowledge-based economies.

Therefore, R&D acquires knowledge generated within the organization (by the R, by the D) and from outside (from other companies and through the higher education and research system, or possibly from individuals – customers, fans, etc.) and creates new knowledge. By doing so, it makes current knowledge obsolete (even that mastered by the members of its own company). R&D is engaged in a dynamic of “creative destruction ” aimed at knowledge and skills as well as products and enterprises. While this term has been brought to the foreground by Schumpeter [SCH 42] making innovation the driving force of economic growth in the long term in capitalist economies, recent times have been marked by a phenomenal acceleration. This acceleration is visible in all countries and in all sectors, and it is linked to scientific and technological progress at the global level as well as to the prevalence of competition through innovation and strategies for the accelerated obsolescence of products. However, the intensity of these processes varies according to the sectors. Thus, in certain markets and/or in some developed scientific and technical areas, developments are weaker, slower and more predictable. The dynamics of know-how are less turbulent in the areas of heavy chemicals, agri-food and the construction industries than in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information and communication technology.

This context of acceleration in the dynamics of the creative destruction of knowledge generates a risk of obsolescence for individuals, groups and companies. To overcome this, it is essential to continuously advance knowledge and skills and to reposition areas of expertise, in conjunction with the specific dynamics of both the scientific and technical fields and those of the markets and the strategies of the enterprises. Chapters 4 and 5 will explore the issues of continuous learning, by investigating, respectively, the role of HRM – with regard to individual learning – and collective knowledge management. Box 2.2 shows the issues at stake regarding learning issues such as those indicated by the R&D engineers of a technology SME in the medical devices sector.

The constant knowledge and skills dynamic that R&D individuals and groups must master is also linked with innovation in the field of scientific tools. In this way, R&D tools have evolved, if we consider the progress of usage in the area of calculation (with the advent of computers and their democratization), observation (with the electronic microscope), experimentation, measurement and profiling (with the mass spectrometer), etc. Some disciplines have gone back already several decades to the “Big Science” era, resorting to very expensive tools: astrophysics, biology with genetic sequencing and biotechnology, physics with particle accelerators, etc.

These technological developments in terms of work tools mean that monitoring needs to take place first of all in order to guide choices of investments that are becoming heavier, as well as ongoing training at the individual and collective level to be able to control the use of these new tools and follow their successive improvements. If these tools enable us to gain in efficiency (work more quickly) and effectiveness (doing things better), they take part in a competition where they must possess better equipment than their competitors.

As for the use of these tools at the training level, some of which are extremely complex and developed by a very small number of suppliers, they play an essential role in the provision of specific training courses on the instruments and equipment that they sell to their customers. If we consider the large, even the very large, instruments (particle accelerators, etc.), due to their cost and the need for engineers and technicians for their maintenance and operation, industrial enterprises sometimes choose to use publicly funded equipment or to co-finance with other private and public participants on technological platforms that then benefit multiple users.

2.1.2. The work in R&D: between interactions and engagements with the surrounding environment

The previous section explained how R&D is fundamentally open to its environment, and particularly to its scientific and technical environment. R&D professionals have the important job of external monitoring, essential for R&D and the innovation capacity of the enterprise. In addition, their activity generates knowledge that is – partly – “redistributed”, diffused, evaluated, challenged and reused by actors in this external scientific and technical environment. It is impossible to work in one’s own area and ignore the knowledge and technology developed by others worldwide. In addition, a part of what R&D produces is aimed at external diffusion (patents, publications, building up a reputation, influence on standardization, etc.), and this is one of the main R&D missions, apart from contributing more directly to the enterprise’s innovation processes.

This opening to the outside is not recent: it is con-substantial to the R&D business and indispensable. The R&D professionals in the enterprises have always devoted part of their working time to reading published works, analyzing patents and exchanging with other scientists – industrial as well as academic – within the framework of scientific and technical conferences. These links with the external scientific and technical environment take place at different scales: local, national, regional and international. However, scientists have not waited for the economic globalization of the past 40 years to exchange views on a wide scale within international networks of scholars. History of science illustrates the importance of these exchanges as well as the early globalized nature of competition in the field.

The links with the scientific environment do not only come from interactions but also take the form of genuine collaborations. Furthermore, the R&D professionals are not content to just read the work of other scientists or to exchange knowledge at conferences, but they work together. Well before the recent success of the concept of open innovation (see Chapter 1 and section 2.3.2 of this chapter), multiple forms of cooperation already existed with academic research. Box 2.3 provides an illustration.

These strong links with higher education and research contribute to a strong porosity between these professional worlds. Industrial and academic researchers share – in addition to identical training and the same socialization process – similar professional identities (this is less true of D engineers) (see also Chapter 4). They form epistemic communities around scientific sub-areas that cross organizational, institutional and geographical boundaries. The engineers of D are stakeholders of external technical communities, less academic and geared more toward the practice in which they share ideas with other professionals in their field.

Thus, beyond just academic researchers, the R&D professionals also maintain relations with other enterprises (suppliers, customers, competitors, partners), in particular with their R&D teams. For example, researchers are in relation with the suppliers of materials and scientific instruments, and development/design engineers with the suppliers of spare parts.

R&D professionals can have relations with the regulatory agencies. In the telecom sector, for example, it is essential to ensure interoperability between countries, operators, hardware vendors, etc., and it is the role of the European and global standardization organizations to determine the technical standards to permit this interoperability. In a survey conducted on the R&D professionals at Orange, it is clear that with the presence of standardization bodies and the technical lobbying that is done, there is a role granted to R&D engineers. Indeed, company representatives must be sufficiently sharp with regards to technical skills to be able to understand the issues in the negotiations in order to try to influence decision-making and settlements to be reached. Thus, R&D designers work alongside public bodies and competing companies.

2.1.3. A job characterized by a certain degree of autonomy and occupational regulations

The work of R&D is also distinguished by a significant degree of autonomy, which stems in part from its other traits: an unconventional job, one geared toward the creation of knowledge and/or new artifacts; a knowledge-intensive occupation requiring highly qualified people who are experts in their field and workers who participate in knowledge communities that cross the boundaries of the organization. Researchers, and to a lesser extent, R&D designers, are “professionals” within the American sociological meaning of professions [CHA 12]. They are characterized by their expertise, as already discussed, as well as by their autonomy, their involvement in the work and the profession, their identification with a group of professionals and their ethic and cooperative efforts in the establishment and control of professional standards (see Chapter 4).

On account of both their professional identity, of which autonomy is an essential element, and the characteristics of their business, R&D professionals are much more autonomous than the other professions in the company, apart from other workers in creative industries (design, advertising) or managers at a certain level.

However, differences exist between R and D. In research, autonomy can bear on both the objectives of the work (although in essence nobody can define ex ante what is going to be and what should be found) and the organization of work (how does one define a process that leads to an undefined objective?). In addition, professional regulations are particularly needed in the world of research, with heavy peer pressure (inside the company, but also sometimes externally) in the performance evaluation of industrial researchers at different times of their career (selection, work and skills appraisals, promotions, etc.). In the area of development, the pressure in professional, managerial and organizational schemes is different. Thus, during the development of a new product, the objectives, as well as the job timescale, are often within a precise framework of specifications in terms of quality, cost and deadline, and if the job cannot be completely controlled, it is still closely monitored by the manager.

In section 2.2, we will emphasize the reduction in R&D autonomy in recent times, with a stronger managerial intervention in this function than before. However, R&D still continues today to benefit from a greater autonomy than the other functions of the company (which are also the object of significant streamlining), and this autonomy remains greater in R than in D.

The companies have indeed acknowledged the need to grant a certain degree of autonomy to R&D professionals, which leads to specific management practices. Thus, Google gives 20% “free” time to its R&D engineers so that they can work on what they want, outside of the objectives that are set by the organization and outside of the projects to which they are assigned. This is done as much in a spirit of reward, thus responding to the aspirations of these professionals in terms of autonomy, as in a logic of managing innovative activities. Indeed, it is impossible to explore new questions, have innovative ideas, break free from existing thought processes and push through the boundaries of what we know and what is possible in work frameworks, which are precisely stipulated in advance, without the possibility of making adjustments along the way and under strict control and the scrutiny of a third party. Google’s practice of “free” time cuts the R&D engineers some “slack”, so that they can be creative (see Chapter 3 on these issues). Galindo [GAL 17] gives another example of more autonomous managerial practices in the case of Withings, a start-up (now acquired by Nokia) that markets Internet-ready devices for the health sector. Entrepreneurship – as a lever of innovation – is encouraged, and this is done by giving employees scope to choose their activity. One developer explains: “At Withings, they ask you: ‘What would you like to do? Would you like to work, on this, this or this,’ so that’s interesting.” [GAL 17, p. 62]. The table below also illustrates the importance of autonomy in R&D from the viewpoint of R&D engineers. The quotes illustrate how autonomy does not mean absolute freedom and how the existence of frameworks and a certain degree of constraint can also be stimulating in terms of creativity and innovation.

Noting this need for a certain degree of autonomy in work, management practices developed in R&D are moving away from the “classic model .” Managers act more like coaches than hierarchical superiors exercising a permanent and direct control on work and behavior. Beyond the impossibility of carrying out a detailed specification of the work (as the production or administrative departments may do), the position of the manager is also complicated by the existence of frequent hyper-specialization in R&D, which can make them less competent, or at least less of an expert, in the knowledge areas his colleagues are working in. Work organization falls more within the organic model than the mechanistic model [BUR 61]: formalization reduced, wide spectrum of activity, multiple coordination and decentralization of power. Coordination comes predominantly from mutual adjustment (by direct contact, without going through hierarchical intervention) in organizational forms, which are similar to Mintzberg’s adhocracy [MIN 82]: a flexible type of organization that adapts according to the needs and constraints of the business activities to be achieved and complex activities, which are part of dynamic environments.

Earlier comments about professional identity and management methods relate to researchers and engineers in R&D. The technicians are, for their part, in a less favorable position in terms of autonomy, given their support role compared to researchers and engineers who have the power to define their work, with respect to its purposes and objectives, but also its content, organization and timing. The Frascati Manual [OEC 02] defines the researchers and engineers in R&D as “specialists working in the design or creation of new knowledge, products, processes, methods and systems, and in project management”, and technicians as “people whose main tasks require knowledge and technical experience in one or more fields of engineering, physical and life sciences or social sciences and humanities. They are involved in R&D by carrying out scientific and technical tasks by implementing operational principles and methods under the supervision and control of researchers”. While the difference between technicians and research engineers is significant, the differences between the research work undertaken by researchers and research technicians and the work shared between engineers and technicians are also considerable.

Thus, in section 2.1, we pointed out both the specific features of R&D work compared to other functions within the enterprise and its non-homogeneous character. Therefore, we could say that R&D is contingent to a large number of aspects such as personnel categories, the size of the organization, its strategy, its business sector, the scientific and technical fields, depending on whether the activities are upstream or downstream, the degree of autonomy, the nature of the project, its timescale, how open it is to the environment and the kind of external partners it has, the speed of knowledge advancement as well as its links with materiality (see Box 2.5).

After having pointed out the special features of R&D work, we must highlight how it has evolved since the end of the 1980s, with an important acceleration over the past 20 years. In section 2.2, we focus on describing the main transformations, which are currently rooted in R&D work. In section 2.3, we demonstrate, first, how some of them are a source of difficulty and, second, how R&D work is really called into question by more recent developments including those that are still to come, as well as internationalization, open innovation or digital revolution.

2.2.1. The advent of project management and of the concurrent engineering model

The work of R&D has evolved considerably with the introduction of project management [MID 93a, MID 93b, GAR 03c], which has gradually asserted itself as the model for organizing design processes for new products. Project organization is not new (if we think about engineering and construction – bridges, dams, etc. – nuclear power, space), but what we characterize as the project management today refers mainly to the organization and design of activities according to the principles and the model of concurrent engineering. In this, a transversal project combines and coordinates the actors of different departments that are involved in new product development. These actors will contribute to the project, moving forward together toward the same unique goal, exploring and engaging in parallel work on the different aspects of the project (product design and production process design; technical aspects and functionalities etc.), which, to date, have been dealt with in a successive manner. It is also about regrouping all the different units involved as well as anticipating as far as possible certain responsibilities and decisions. The idea is to provide a degree of freedom in the upstream phases and to postpone tasks and decisions, which require the commitment of heavy and strategic resources as late as possible once knowledge has been gathered, thus limiting uncertainty. The aim is to complete the project as quickly as possible while reducing costs.

It is useful to refer to existing organizational structures [GAR 03a, GAR 03c] to understand the logic and contributions of concurrent engineering. Earlier, the industry was organized following a Taylorian model in operation, working sequentially and completely disjointedly from the other units from upstream to downstream in a science pushing logic. Takeuchi and Nonaka [TAK 86] used the metaphor of the relay race to reflect this organization method: research begins, passes over to development if it has found interesting results, and development works alone to pass over to the industrialization and then to marketing, etc. There is no interaction, or collaboration between the different departments that work successively within the strict boundaries of their expertise, seeking to optimize the quality of the work done in the sequence of the innovation process and/or on the part of the product for which they are responsible.

Such a sequential Taylorian model can be inefficient and ineffective in many ways. First, none of the actors are responsible for the overall product development, with each one working in turn and under the authority of their department or business unit. The duration of the project therefore is the total length of each of the processes consecutively, each one considering that the importance of their work deserves a substantial amount of time, which then results in the overall time being exceeded. In addition, the success of an innovation process is conditioned by the overall product quality, by the capacity to satisfy consumer needs and by the acceptable price that consumers will be willing to pay for such a product (taking into account the use value of the product and of competing products on the market), and not the optimization of each of its dimensions. It is typical to see R&D designers, for example, make their inventions more sophisticated, without considering the customer usage, in turn risking an excess in the cost and the sale price. Going further, it is very complicated for upstream actors to integrate the issues and constraints of industrialization, purchasing or marketing and sales, while they are never in contact with them. They have to imagine what could be of interest to a customer whom they do not know, which is not easy. There is a lot of waste then, and R&D projects that have consumed time and resources are then stopped in the downstream phases because they are finally deemed irrelevant from the viewpoints of clients, markets or company strategy or even deemed too expensive. In contrast, the downstream actors may encounter difficulties in the industrialization of the product or have to respond to customer dissatisfaction, without managing the underlying processes. Then, it is difficult to resolve these problems involving long cycles, especially since the R&D engineers who were at the origin of the product development have since moved to other projects or have even left R&D. This causes delays and significant costs, which can be fatal for the outcome of the innovation process.

While the competitive context is evolving in the direction of increased competition, with a new rhythm of innovation and different time management, the pitfalls of conventional design organization methods become unsustainable and prohibiting vis-à-vis competitors. The analysis of the virtuous practices of Japanese companies in design leads to the United States and Europe testing a new model called concurrent engineering. It involves the creation of temporal structure (horizontally organized project structure), which crosses over and draws on the permanent resources of the company (vertical axis by functions and business units), thus generating a provisional matrix structure. Overall objectives are assigned to the project (and no longer to each business unit), and it is the responsibility of the project team to meet the targets. Each project is given a framework, a defined cost, quality (with technical and functional specifications to attain) and a timescale. Project control is no longer performed by the business units. Instead, a steering committee specifically defined for the project will review the project at each stage. A person will generally be designated as project manager, responsible for its progress and compliance with the cost-quality-timescale specifications. Depending on the configuration, the level of authority will vary, but this tends to increase in correlation with the size and the strategic importance of the project (see Box 2.6).

Project teams bring together from the beginning all the business units concerned, and in particular, the downstream actors are integrated very early in the project, to incorporate the constraints and challenges of industrialization, supply, marketing, etc. In contrast, the upstream actors now stay with the project through to completion. The rugby team metaphor could be used here, as intensive communication and a strong ability to cooperate are essential. Charue-Duboc [CHA 97] indicates the principles that make concurrent engineering effective: global optimization all around the project and not only on one of its dimensions; anticipation of development problems; responsiveness (the reaction speed to the uncertainties encountered and quick resolution of problems) and client orientation.

Beyond these generic principles, projects will cover very different situations, according to the industries. Therefore, in the car industry, each project is very important and consequently project participants are very often dedicated entirely to the project, in “out-mode”, i.e., in working outside their skill set. The project team is localized on a “plateau”, which is a physical space where all individuals within the different business units contributing to the project meet, in order to facilitate the coordination, cooperation, through mutual adjustment and close connections that develop over time. This may encourage issues and pressures from different business units and from the different dimensions of a vehicle at any time (product process, technical marketing, quality cost, interactions between the different sub-systems: motorization, steering, braking, electricity, etc.). The suppliers are sometimes included in these projects to anticipate problems of component integration in the new model of vehicle or even for co-design of new parts or sub-systems of the vehicle.

In the chemical industry, there are more projects but smaller ones, at least in the upstream phases, where the failure rate is high. Therefore, a project that “works” becomes much bigger, especially if it is accompanied by a development project of a specific production unit. At Rhodia, the researchers we met were working on several projects at the same time. They were in frequent contact, remotely or through meetings, with the other business units of the company (downstream business units of R&D, process engineering, internal customers, technical marketing, etc.), but they stayed in their research laboratory, where they were undertaking tasks necessary for the progress of the various projects that had been assigned to them [GAS 07].

The term project also covers a wide variety of situations, particularly according to the business sectors, with regard to their strategic importance, size, timescale, budget, complexity, the customer (i.e. if it is a project carried out for themselves or for third parties, an identified third party or a potential third party, industrial customer or end user) or even their style of leading and their principles for managing (see Chapter 6).

Apart from the wide variety of projects, it is still possible to point out a few features of R&D projects (see Table 2.1).

2.2.2. A job which is more interactive and more dependent on the downstream

The arrival of project organization is accompanied by a transformation of R&D work with, on the one hand, an intensification of interactions that are now made with very diverse actors and, on the other hand, a certain loss of autonomy regarding the work. The downstream entities and logics are breaking into R&D work by being more present and more prescriptive.

In an organization by project, the R&D professionals are also interacting with the other functions of the company. This is an important change, because they worked until then in a professional space open to the outside but kept to the sub-environment of science and technology. Now, researchers and, particularly, the R&D engineers (the project form as described above being most used in the development phases) are in contact with the process engineers, production engineers, marketing professionals, finance, procurement, etc. R&D professionals, from now on, must interact with individuals who have neither the same training nor the same language, operational rationality and logic. They must learn to communicate, listen, understand and adapt to skills and logics which are different from their own. As a result of the projects, the R&D professionals are thus more in contact with the downstream entities as well as with various managers (project leaders, heads of the internal customer entities of the project as well as their usual business hierarchy). In some projects, the R&D professionals can also find themselves in contact with customers and suppliers who are integrated into design teams (as is the case in the car industry).

For R&D professionals, this is not only reflected by being in contact and by a need for more communication regarding their work, but it is a profound transformation in the way of working, because now R&D is more autonomous with regard to the activities they carry out. R&D professionals are involved in projects controlled by a project leader, according to a specification given by a client and/or other business service (marketing, finance, senior management), which strongly directs the work to be carried out and the results to be achieved. It is a major change compared to isolation and autonomy, which have long characterized R&D work. It is the outside environment that guides project management. Thus, they no longer have the autonomy. Instead, the R&D professionals are told issues and which problem to work on, according to the time frame: project deadline, milestones to respect, timescale granted for each stage, etc. Thus, project organization is translated by a loss of autonomy for R&D in terms of defining its own activities as well as organizing their own conduct and time management. At present, R&D activity takes place in a forced framework, in which the requirements are greater and there are ongoing assessments issued by the project leader, by different project participants in the various business units of the company, by external partners involved in the projects, etc.

Organization by project produces another significant transformation in R&D professionals ʼway of working. For a long time they only interacted when they could present interesting and significant results, following a job that they considered as completed within their scope of intervention, but now things have changed. They will have to learn to show the work that they have produced more often, by presenting intermediary, partial results, not necessarily accomplished or completely assured – at the beginning anyway – which is very unusual and can be awkward and unsettling for these professionals. But how can we ensure that the professionals are working efficiently toward a satisfactory completion of a project? Through these very frequent interactions, we can ensure that the design takes into consideration the expectations and constraints of the downstream participants who support the logics of industrialization, of the customer, of finance, of the management of the product life cycle, etc., without which innovation cannot exist or succeed. It is often by showing what one does that helps to influence certain choices made in the project, on the condition that the person manages to convince the decision-makers of the relevance of the proposed technical option.

Thus, we are breaking away from the way of working that was certainly comfortable for R&D, where they were not exposed to logics, constraints, intrusions and evaluations from other business units, but which led to the abandonment of a large number of R&D projects. Indeed, R&D could devote significant resources in terms of time and financial means by developing far off the product or process prototype, which, having been developed by R&D actors isolated from those downstream, never met the interests, concerns, expectations or acceptable economic equations for the latter. This implies that if the project form reduces the autonomy that the R&D professionals had received until then, some of them will find a strong motivation in the fact that it increases the chances for them to see their work be used in new products or processes effectively adopted by external or internal clients. It is a source of recognition and motivation. It is particularly important for some professionals to know that they have contributed to the design of a product that achieves strong sales, for example. Some R&D professionals also appreciate working more collaboratively with very diverse business units. It is an important source of knowledge and skill development, and for some, this opens new prospects in terms of mobility and careers. Job changes toward the upstream business units are now more frequent.

In certain projects, according to the efficiency principles of concurrent engineering, R&D engineers remain implicated in the project until industrialization has reached an advanced stage, for example. Accompanying the project toward the downstream phases and seeing it succeed (and therefore not just knowing that it has succeeded) are again very important in terms of recognition and training. It is in following “one’s own” project that one understands the difficulties of fitting a part, for example, in a more complex system, or the industrialization of a product, which proceeds from circumstances and physical and economic constraints, etc., which are very different from those encountered in the laboratory or in the prototyping phases. The first reactions of the clients – internal or external – are also extremely enlightening. The knowledge acquired is then very important for giving the R&D engineers new ideas. It is also important for them to select and guide, in light of this better knowledge, the downstream issues and constraints in industrial, economic, commercial and marketing terms.

The agile method, which is currently very popular, is a result of the effectiveness logics of the concurrent engineering in the world of software design. In the scrum methodology, for example, design teams work on short sequences, “sprints”, after which the completed work is submitted for future users, or in any case, for actors who represent them. The rapid feedback on the work allows the choices made to be recorded, or alternatively to redirect them very quickly thanks to customers expressing their wishes or signalling inadequate usage while testing the pieces of product prototypes (which is easier to do in the world of software than in other sectors). If the team is coached by a scrum master, then there is only a little intrusion from a hierarchical management. The design team is very autonomous in the organization of its work (division and coordination of work, working time, etc.) and self-regulatory in the organizations that have truly implemented an agile mode to their processes. However, the retreat of the traditional hierarchical framework does not mean the absence of evaluation or pressure, but currently it is the figure of the customer who is omnipresent and who calls for effectiveness and efficiency. However, evaluation is much more prevalent than before, as each “sprint ”leads to a work evaluation, and judgment of the work done (or not) is ongoing within the team.

The agile mode is one of the new methods of design that puts the client at the center of the discussion as well as the customers’ added value of a new product and service. The method called user-centric innovation introduces the figure of the customer (real or represented) at the center of R&D work, where for a long time the scientific and technical challenge took precedence over the application and features of use.

This reconciliation of R&D and the customer is also a result of the decentralization of R&D from the headquarters of the company toward business units which are focused on markets and customers and are concerned with performance in the short term. Furthermore, many companies have conducted a partial or complete decentralization of their R&D, due to the willingness of the business units to have more control over the R&D work in order to direct them toward possible areas of challenge for them and to improve performance¹. In the first configuration (which could be found, for example, in Rhodia, today Solvay, or in Thales), R&D is shared between one or several central laboratories and R&D laboratories in the business entities. The R&D center works on more upstream subjects that can potentially be broken down into applications for the different markets and business segments of the group. Decentralized R&D is more applied and more specific, working exclusively on processes and offers from the business units that host and finance it. Here, we have a form of structural ambidexterity, where there is significant differentiation in the roles of R&D actors and entities.

The total decentralization results in the complete disappearance of central laboratories. These changes in structure are followed by a willingness to bring together the R&D of internal and external customers, in order to help guide its work and to increase the advancement of the work carried out in R&D toward the stage of usage. This has enhanced the dual phenomenon of intensification of R&D links with the actors, the downstream business units and logic, and its increased dependence on them. The projects carried out in R&D are the result of more or less urgent demands coming from the production, marketing, technical and sales departments or directly from the customers. Here, it is more difficult to sustain a real research project, when it weighs directly on the financial results of business entities, which are challenged on their short-term profitability.

All of these changes are part of a huge reversal of the innovation process and its management principles (see Chapter 1), from a science push model, in which R&D (and especially the R) was very autonomous and upstream in the innovation process, to a market pull model, in which R&D responds to the needs expressed by the clients or marketing services.

2.2.3. Managerialization, bureaucratization and remoteness of technical work

R&D executives – researchers and engineers – are currently based farther away from the technical activity. If we can relate this to their investment in new roles arising from the great changes in R&D management methods as well as, for example, the growing number of projects or the greater control granted to R&D over funds, then it is already a long-running trend. The organization of R&D work results in a clearer division of work between the design (performed by the executives) and the execution (performed by the technicians). Indeed, very quickly after their recruitment, young R&D engineers move away from the activity of “implementing” – the experimental activity, for example – to delegating it to the technicians. The latter are often the only ones who have a genuine expertise in some areas such as the control of scientific tools of experimentation, measurement, calculation, etc. They share the experimental work with the internship students, PhD students and post-doctoral students, and they form with them a community invested in development and knowledge transfer on these aspects of R&D work. This clear-cut sharing of activities between managers and technicians is partly due to the managers’ “aspiration” to execute project management activities and more managerial roles. It is also due to an enthusiasm of young executives for these roles, which will lead them, quickly after finishing their studies, to move away from the more technical part of R&D work.

Recent trends toward managerialization reinforce this distancing of the technical work. All the executives are more and more absorbed by management activities: upstream negotiation of projects and budgets, presentations to management and customers, reporting activities during and at the end of the projects², etc. Those who take team or project responsibilities see the share of these activities grow to the point that they quickly abandon any operational scientific and technical activity (and in contexts where the knowledge is evolving very quickly, they can quickly find themselves unable to regain roles as direct contributors to R&D activities). The project leaders and managers are thus in charge of various roles: budgetary management, schedule management, day-to-day managing of the team, human resources management (evaluation, feedback on training needs, detection and prevention of psycho-social risks, etc.), passing of quality policies, management of relations with external partners, etc. It must be stated that a substantial share of R&D professionals has a real desire for these activities. Moreover, at present, some Master’s students or thesis students manifest before even entering the profession the desire to do project management and innovation management, “without going through the background research part”. Professional development toward project leader and project management roles are quantitatively important and arrive early in the career path.

These transformations in R&D work lead us to wonder about their consequences in terms of the dynamics of individual and collective skills. Do young R&D engineers spend the necessary time to acquire basic knowledge, core business, which forms the basis of their ability and legitimacy in this very technical universe of R&D? Aren’t they risking “burning their bridges” by playing project leader roles too quickly, without having attained a strong enough skill base? How, at the collective level, can R&D professionals develop strong skills when the time devoted to the science decreases and when turnover increases? What does this mean for a profession when significant numbers of its members, and in particular, the new entrants, aspire to do something else quickly?

If most of the R&D professionals are satisfied with these prospects of rapid evolution toward roles of transverse or hierarchical management, it raises questions for those researchers who particularly aspire to develop their skills while continuing to work on R&D projects. For them, evolution toward project leader or manager roles is a form of abandonment, even if it contributes objectively to an improvement of the situation of the individual in the business (power, compensation, etc.). Some companies then offered various forms of payment to the R&D professionals who do not want to progress to management roles, which is the more traditional pathway in a company (see Chapter 4, Box 4.5).

Having said this, and even if this is still marginal, some businesses are currently experiencing difficulty finding volunteers to assume management or project leader responsibilities. It is true that requirements and pressure have increased sharply in recent times. This is not specific to R&D: proximity managers, who have not been trained in management, find themselves facing injunctions over the ownership of tools and complex logic. This is combined with a fundamentally sensitive position between the teams they have to manage and for whose results they are accountable and the general management. Recent pressures that combine performance injunctions and budget cuts accentuate these difficulties.

Finally, bureaucratization is another factor. The latter comes with a desire for tighter control over R&D, its spending, activities and productions. For example, R&D professionals are required to fill out time sheets, describing precisely how they have used their working time, based on different activities and in different projects. This is part of an internal logic of R&D financed by various actors (corporate, business entities, public authorities, such as the ANR (Agence nationale de la recherche – national research agency) in France or the European Union programs, etc.), each requesting to be able to verify that the volume of man-days that it has paid corresponds to the time actually spent by the R&D professionals on a project. Management control is much more present today in R&D, and it is about knowing which variable or fixed costs one should assign to a particular project, to calculate the sale price and profitability especially and/or to drive the design process to stay in the conditions initially planned. Bureaucratization is also currently linked to a very strong pervasiveness of quality standards and certifications, such as ISO, which imposes a formalization of the process, the establishment of procedures, with very detailed documentation to ensure traceability of the activities, the training received by staff, etc. In some sectors, we understand the rationale that there are very heavy demands: pharmacy, medical devices, aeronautics, nuclear, etc. The concerns around intellectual property, in a very competitive landscape, also lead some companies to ask their researchers and engineers to keep a written record of their work, in order to be able, if applicable (if the work leads to an invention), to provide evidence of the prior art of inventions necessary to obtain protection by means of a patent.

This bureaucratic trend raises questions about R&D innovation, which is meant to be managed through fluid structures based on mutual adjustment and a quick decision-making capacity.

Bureaucratization, as well as the increasing demands for justification of costs incurred ex ante and ex post evaluations, leads to paradoxical injunctions for R&D professionals. They should bring break-through innovations, while being able to describe what they would achieve and furthermore, to calculate the return on investment (ROI) of innovation to come, in order to obtain the necessary resources to begin to work; they must then create new knowledge, in the framework of a detailed schedule with specific milestones to meet; they must push for a renewal of the company offer, but must keep an eye out so that new technologies do not risk the system, which must be based on proven technologies and they must design in agile mode, while respecting the company’s decision-making procedures, which provide multiple levels of validation and by continually reporting to their managers in structures that are from a hierarchical culture. One could imagine the difficulty in which the professionals are placed, since regardless of the choice they make, deciding one way or another, they will always be in an awkward situation because of the irreconcilable nature of these injunctions.

In the vein of these latest remarks, we begin section 2.3 by questioning the consequences of certain developments in R&D.

2.3.1. Increasing pressure and strong focus in the short term: how sustainable is this in individual and collective terms?

For several years, R&D has both been put under unprecedented pressure and undergone a significant loss of autonomy, within a short period of time, because of the many factors previously outlined: organization by project; constant evaluation; strong time competition and obsession with the time to market; stronger dependence on business entities; conditioning of resources allocated to R&D, in particular based on its ability to demonstrate their usefulness ex ante and their performance ex post; focus on the short term, etc. It is not about making a case against these developments, some of which have produced important results such as a reduction in design deadlines and an increase in the transition rate of projects from the R to the D and toward industrialization and marketing. However, they raise questions relating to the sustainability (from an individual and collective point of view) of the new model, of R&D work (although we should state that conditions are different according to the companies, sectors, the R or D, etc.).

At an individual level, there are greater stress and broader and more different psycho-social risks (PSR), having already led to tragic consequences such as the suicides of R&D engineers. This issue of the PSR cannot be ignored at present, but it is the subject of very little academic work. Zannad [ZAN 08] has already pointed out that, on the subject of project organization, the literature is almost entirely focused on the beneficial effects of projects and, on occasions, it focuses on individuals and project managers. Although projects are a proven source of stress [ASQ 07], this organization is designed to focus attention on achieving project objectives, within specified time frames, that become increasingly short. The projects are great “demand machines”, always asking more from individuals. The evaluation is constant, and it is the result of a multitude of participants: peers, members of the project team from other departments, project managers, and external partners, in addition to the business unit manager. While project management encourages, through physical proximity, communication and mutual adjustment, it also creates a lot of pressure as everyone is constantly under the gaze of colleagues, project managers and customers.

The generalization of the project model leads individuals to be in a continuous rotation between projects, without any time for a project break or time to work for the business unit needs, impacting the individual’s capacity to recover. This recovery involves, on the one hand, a variation in work patterns that would reduce the psycho-social risks and, on the other hand, dialectic exploration/exploitation. In the project mode, individuals work based on existing knowledge (exploitation). However, the time spent in the business units can be very useful to maintain and develop knowledge, but it still requires time and resources to carry out activities of this type (which are not “cost-effective” in the short term for an internal or external customer).

Being confined to projects where there is no strong ambition for the creation of new knowledge can be frustrating for some R&D professionals, because this is not in line with their professional aspirations. Beyond this, there is the question of how relevant to the company’s strategy is this focus on product development and the actions leading to their application (and thus to their generation of turnover). While many companies argue for the importance of innovation and the ability, besides incremental innovations, to take a more substantial lead on its competitors thanks to break-through innovations, this use of available R&D resources destinated for short-term accomplishement of development projects is questionable to say the least.

Studies (notably [BEN 98, BEN 06, CHA 01]) have shown how product management organization could be problematic in terms of the capitalization of acquired knowledge. During the project, everyone is under pressure and no time is allocated, either during or at the end of the project, to carry out a knowledge codification. In addition, the way that subsequent assignments on other projects is done doesn’t take into account a previous reflection about the continuity of the knowledge base, the learning process, or the conservation of an organizational memory. The authors (see Chapter 5) have highlighted how projects deplete the expertise of the professions/business units, at individual and collective levels, endangering the company’s ability to maintain its key skill areas and furthermore its innovation potential in the medium to long term. This risk is magnified in the case of long-term projects and in “output ”projects.

It should be noted that once these difficulties were identified, some organizations developed practices to overcome them. This is the case in the field of knowledge management with tools and practices promoting knowledge capitalization [SIM 08]. HRM has also evolved, with, for example, attention being given to new key skills for work in the project structure, as well as tolerance to ambiguity, which is going to be sought among candidates at the time of recruitment or at the appointment of the project managers. The same applies to the consideration of the contributions made in projects in the annual appraisal of individuals, which is explained in Chapter 4.

Lenfle [LEN 08] warns of the dangers of extending principles of concurrent engineering to all R&D projects. Although concurrent engineering is very effective for managing development projects, for which it has been invented, it is counter-productive to apply it in the context of exploration projects, which are of a fundamentally different nature. Regarding these exploratory projects, it is essential to diminish the management constraints (which seek to chart, control and reduce uncertainty), to invent project management practices adapted to these phases of creativity, and a generation of ideas that are sometimes conflicting, etc.

However, it is even sometimes the ability to take on exploratory projects, which is currently in question in some R&D organizations. This is particularly the case in arrangements (very frequent now), where R&D is decentralized within corporate entities. These entities push for a greater focus on projects that can bring tangible results in the short term. And even when long-term projects are launched, it is difficult for the engineers to drive them forward when their time is drained and split because of urgent matters with projects that need to be completed quickly.

These limits push some companies to go backward in a way to recreate entities dedicated to exploration, which are generally placed under the responsibility of the corporate section (e.g. Explocenter Orange, now closed, or the LOF – Lab of the Future – of Rhodia-Solvay). While work tensions are less strong in these entities, where researchers can devote themselves to imagining the products and technologies of the future, they fall back with the difficulties that cause the poor connection between the upstream and downstream phases of the innovation process. On the one hand, the projects that are conducted in the exploratory entities arise from researchers’ proposals and not from requests expressed by the corporate business units. It is then difficult to move projects to the development stage when this requires a handing over – especially financially – to business units who were not previously interested in these projects, and which are not included in their strategic agenda. On the other hand, even in the case of requests dating back from corporate units, the distance – physical, but also cognitive – between the upstream and those of the downstream actors creates the risk of conflicting processes between the work that will be conducted by the upstream and the reality of the expectations and constraints of the participating influencers of the downstream. In fact, little of the work carried out by the exploratory entities are included and valued by the divisions. This accentuates the mistrust vis-à-vis upstream activities, which are not well received in companies which are more than ever focused on short-term profitability. This short-termism really questions the ability of these companies to support intensive yet critical innovation strategies.

2.3.2. Relocation, internationalization, outsourcing and open innovation: what is the future of R&D work?

At present, R&D work is going through many transformations, some of which are still widely in progress or even foreseen. One example is the movement of R&D activities and investments toward the countries of the south. While the large industrial enterprises in the north have for a long time created R&D laboratories in other countries of the north, movement toward the countries of the south is more recent (see Chapter 1) and it is not clear how far this movement will go. While, for a long time, innovation was promoted by the countries of the north as the way to keep qualified employment on national territory and non-qualified employment destined to be delocalized, it is striking to see companies close R&D centers in their countries of origin³, to open again particularly in China.

An initial set of questions refer to where the work of R&D will be in 30 years and who will be doing it. Also, what volume of R&D employment will remain in the countries of the north, in France for example? A second set of questions focus on the nature of the work carried out by the laboratories according to their geographical situation. For a long time, the international division of labor in R&D was clear. The laboratories located in Western countries, as well as in nearby countries, were conducting the more upstream work (for Thales, for example, the French and English centers). Laboratories in other countries of the north (e.g. the United States for Rhodia) enabled integrating localized research and innovation networks, which co-produced knowledge locally [JAC 11], but also enabled recruiting talent and, finally, better perception of the specific features of local markets, to ensure a close presence to the customers. The laboratories that were set up in the countries of the south concentrated on adapting products designed by the center to the foreign market specifications and providing technical support service for the problems encountered by the industrial customers. This international division of labor in R&D is changing, when one considers the phenomena of reverse innovation (Chapter 1) and that it concerns circulating quickly and transposing innovations designed “off shore” [RIC 15]. In the same way, some countries of the south have constituted ecosystems that are extremely rich in research and innovation, in which Western companies want to insert. What will be the role of R&D laboratories in northern countries, compared to those located in southern countries, in 30 years? How will these different laboratories belonging to the same company work together? We are noticing already how R&D internationalization results in more remote collaborative work, with the constraints and difficulties that time zones, languages, national and technical cultures, etc. give rise to. It also results in geographical mobility, which can be short (the length of a project) or longer, involving international careers.

Another important trend is that of outsourcing R&D. Large industrial companies “refer ”in fact a part of the R&D effort to the external environment. This is for a number of reasons: lower fixed costs, reduced risk taking, exit from activities in which it is impossible to calculate ex ante profitability, ROI, etc. A first set of practices is to pay service providers (companies like Altran Technologies, small businesses, public research laboratories or technological platforms) to do what was done previously in-house. This permits others to carry out the R&D projects (or activities such as presenting samples, etc.) that are not done in-house, to have access to human resources without having to employ them, etc. A second set of practices consists of monitoring the research and innovation ecosystem to detect what is interesting in it before considering the ways and means of capturing it (recruitment of researchers and engineers, purchasing of patents or licenses, start-ups or competitors).

An initial consequence of these outsourcing practices lies in the evolution of the roles of R&D professionals in large industrial enterprises, in any case of some of them. In fact, they must monitor the environment, evaluate the projects and patents from public laboratories or competitors, identify interesting potential partners, report to the company management on this subject, begin collaborations, control research contracts entrusted to external actors, assess their work, etc. In sectors other than R&D, sponsors interested in outsourcing and subcontracting have pointed out the loss of expertise, which stems from it and which carries risks for the company, since its internal actors are no longer able to challenge the quality of services purchased externally. This can constitute a point of vigilance with regard to decisions concerning R&D and its perimeter: what to retain in-house and what to outsource. We should not forget the work of Cohen and Levinthal [COH 90] on the absorption capacity, which really showed how it is impossible – in a field as technical as R&D – to take advantage of what is done in the environment, without having the activities and important skills in scientific and technical fields in question, in-house. We should also note that it takes time to build skills in R&D and that it is not easy to go back on a choice of the disinvestment of a scientific and technical field.

The second consequence of this movement of outsourcing is a displacement of R&D jobs from the large industrial enterprises to technical services companies and SMEs. The work is different. First, engineers are assigned to projects conducted for and in customer enterprises, thus regularly changing the work environment or even business activity sectors and area of expertise. In start-ups and very small or small to medium-sized businesses, the organization of work is both more flexible and informal, with less specialization. Employment is also more uncertain, with limited career prospects internally.

These stronger links with various entities, private and public, geographically close or distant, participate in what is today called open innovation [CHE 03, Chapter 1]. What has changed in recent times is not the open character of R&D (see section 2.1.2), it is the variety in the types of entities that the R&D of large companies have relations with and the terms and conditions involved in setting up these relationships. Large enterprises interact with industrial groups, but also more and more with start-ups, intellectual service providers in the area of development, design, etc.; they maintain ties that are narrower and more multi-faceted with clients (end client, industrial client, real client, clients that are thought up and analyzed by marketing) at different stages in the innovation process (ideation, prototype tests, evaluation of the final product) and with different objectives (inspiration, legitimation, validation, etc.). It is often individuals or external communities (e.g. in the software or gaming world) who, not satisfied with just offering ideas or expressing their opinion on product prototypes, participate in the design of the products. R&D engineers have very different roles in such an environment. They set up mechanisms allowing customers to be involved, like design “tool kits ”supplied to “lead users ”[VON 01] or places dedicated to user testing. They make prototypes and allow testing and then collect and analyze the users ’ feedback. This raises questions about the future of R&D internal workers, R&D professionals from their “historic” mission of contributing to R&D projects and these new roles open to the environment. Are they destined to become leaders of the lead users’ communities or evaluators of the ideas generated by others?

Another transformation is related to the fact that entities and partners are scattered across the globe. Digital devices enable, for example, working collaboratively yet remotely, or allow one to collect ideas for product improvement from individuals around the world through the Internet via crowd sourcing platforms.

Recent times have seen an evolution from the practices of bilateral collaborations (see section 2.1.2) to multi-lateral relations involving many varied entities. For large industrial enterprises, it is about participating in the research and innovation ecosystems (localized or virtual, spontaneous or incited by the public authorities, etc.). They hope to take various resources from them: ideas, knowledge, access to technologies and equipment, recruitment pools, legitimacy, etc., in addition to a pooling of the costs and risks with regard to financing equipment and major R&D programs. In such an ecosystem, the R&D processes are now conducted across many organizational boundaries, in stakeholder chains or networks, and the interface work, interaction and coordination are now becoming a significant part of R&D work.

2.3.3. The digital revolution: what is the impact on work in R&D?

First, we must state that R&D has always maintained strong links with digital technologies, compared to other professions or business sectors. Not only digital technologies are designed fairly widely by R&D, but sometimes they have been designed first for R&D (including, but not only, in the military field) before being extended to the wider public. This applies to computers, supercomputers, the Internet, CAD tools (computer-assisted design), etc. Public debate currently focuses on the fears of future cuts in duties, professions and jobs due to the digital revolution, in particular, artificial intelligence, the world of R&D – which is equally affected by these threats – has a more “natural” and more grounded relationship with these technologies, which are also considered to be empowering.

In fact, R&D has been experimenting for years already with the incredible effects of various categories of digital tools (which must be classified according to their functionality). This is true in tools that allow a very fast and inexpensive flow of information: email, the Internet, electronic databases, several online scientific journals, social scientific networks, etc. In three clicks, we now have access to a volume of knowledge produced very recently worldwide, which facilitates monitoring and reviewing literature. The digital tools that enable very heavy calculations have revolutionized the world of research and design research. They have unbelievably shortened the calculation and data processing time of experiments, for example. They also allow the simulation of complex systems and sometimes completely replace any actual testing (as in the field of nuclear weapons, aerospace, etc.). They transform sometimes certain ways of designing research: in chemistry or biology, where a targeted approach of molecules based on a consideration of their structural characteristics has long been dominant, today’s digital methods enable a blind screening of huge libraries of molecules. This changes not only the approaches but also the skills of scientists involved in these activities. These are new, scientific, multidisciplinary (such as bio-informatics) domains, which emerge and which reveal the strong potential for scientific and innovation breakthroughs.

Digital tools increase the efficiency of R&D as well (by accelerating calculation time or by reducing the necessary resources for testing). They also improve the reliability of its results, because the experiments have been replicated on a larger number of tests, because the computer-aided design tools leave less room for error than hand-made designs, etc. But these tools also transform how they work and they are the development support for new skills, ideas and technologies.

Virtual online development communities of specialized social networks, wikis, Internet forums, etc. are new spaces for brainstorming and comparing ideas, inspiring and training. Although this may raise questions regarding intellectual property protection for enterprises, they are unbelievable tools for stimulating the dynamics, which are already quite prevalent in these universes of sharing and exchanging within epistemic communities.

Digital technologies transform the working method within R&D teams and R&D projects. Collaborative tools facilitate collaboration, remotely or nearby. In R&D networks that are fragmented at the international level, in multi-actor R&D partnerships, these tools are invaluable.

Digital technologies modify and make work evolve due to the new opportunities that they open in terms of prototyping (fast and low cost). Prototyping is easier in the world of software (even though the software applications are becoming more influential in a large number of products) and tools such as 3D printers, which allow embodying ideas at an early stage and very easily. We can experience the user-friendly nature of an object, check its compatibility with another, etc., and other tools such as virtual reality and augmented reality also allow us to test user experiences at an early stage with regard to a future product. In this way, digital tools allow us to see much more quickly, more often and cheaply the intermediate states of production. This makes the project work easier in the agile method, as it allows very quick feedback from other business units and customers. Digital technologies offer immense possibilities regarding ways to engage clients (internal and external) in the design processes: crowd sourcing platforms, data collection on the remote use and exploitation of these, testing of physical or virtual prototypes, etc.

Certain industries that develop complex products (aerospace, automotive, defense, etc.) currently rely on very sophisticated integrative software platforms, extending the changes induced by the use of CAD tools and digital models. These PLM tools (product lifecycle management) contain databases and tools for collaborative work, which incorporate all the business units concerned. They can also be interfaced with external partners, including suppliers in sectors where the lead company (Renault, Airbus Helicopters, Naval Group, etc.) sub-contracts the design and manufacture of a very large number of parts, which must then fit perfectly into the overall system. These PLM tools facilitate the organizational and geographic breakdown of value chains and they can provide a valuable aid in terms of knowledge capitalization. They also lead to a greater formalization, with new requirements for information regarding the tool, for example, and one wonders if they are a support or an obstacle to creativity and innovation [PAR 18]. In any case it is certain that these tools change and will continue to change (although it is likely that they are changing and that they have gone beyond the first industries that adopted them) the border between those duties carried out by man and those carried out by “machine”, leading to developments regarding the skills required in R&D and regarding the identity of these professionals.

At present, digital R&D is an overwhelming source of issues, which is placed high in the rankings of the company directors ʼconcerns (scientific directors and information systems directors) and a source of questions (if not worry) for R&D professionals. Digitalization is certainly going to change R&D work and the professionalism of researchers and engineers. However, uncertainty surrounds the depth and nature of these changes. For R&D managers, this calls for vigilance and considering how to go along with these changes in their work while encouraging the necessary training processes. The digital transformation invites researchers to push on with the initial work on these issues [BEN 16, PAR 18].