Industry-as-Laboratory

The 'Industry-as-Laboratory' research is a powerful and differentiating research concept and instrument that sets ESI apart from other institutes in the area of embedded systems engineering.

It is carried out via collaborative research projects in which industrial and academic partners collaborate as partners with a notion of shared success. In this manner, the implicit industrial know-how and daily practices are coupled to the academic fundamental know-how and the academic freedom to explore.

The ESI research projects deploy real industrial cases. Industry is a direct beneficiary of the embedded systems engineering methods developed in the context of such cases. This is particularly true since the research projects at ESI aim to develop 'proof of concept' for the methods and practices. At the same time such projects can access new scientific know-how developed by academia. Moreover, by exercising actual industrial cases, the academic partners obtain valuable insights into significant problems of industrial relevance that can be the subject of academic research with the objective of developing innovative solutions. This in turn leads to the enhancement of the body of knowledge relating to embedded systems engineering.